


Jaime Without Brienne

by catherineflowers



Series: Me Without You [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: And so do I, Because Fuck Jaime and What He Did, Brienne has every right to be damn angry, Canon-Typical Ableism, Canon-Typical Incest References, Canon-Typical Misogyny, Canon-Typical Violence, Childbirth, Drug Addiction, F/M, Heavy Angst, It's cathartic, Me dealing with my s8 rage, No meadows in Tarth, Not A Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, Pregnancy, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:06:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 59,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23066707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catherineflowers/pseuds/catherineflowers
Summary: After the battle ...Picking up from the events in Brienne Without Jaime
Relationships: Addam Marbrand/Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: Me Without You [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657714
Comments: 572
Kudos: 382





	1. Crimson

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CaptainTarthister](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainTarthister/gifts).



> This story is a direct continuation of the events of [Brienne Without Jaime](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21717478/chapters/51803218), which you definitely need to read first!
> 
> As before, please be warned that this isn't a fix-it or a gloss-over or a retcon of the events in Season 8. Jaime doesn't regret his actions, nor do I whitewash them to make them closer to what we wanted. It's meant to be a direct and faithful continuation, one that will allow me (and hopefully you too!) to process and get some closure. I'm honestly not sure how it will end, whether it will be "happy" or if they will be together. It's complicated, as it would need to be after something so devastating to their relationship.
> 
> Obviously I realise that Jaime's actions were because he was badly written, but sadly I'm not one of those people who can just ignore and move on. So humour me, please. I don't hate Jaime because I need to deal with the end of s8 in this way. It quite possibly could be the only canon we ever get and I need to learn to live with that.

Jaime woke up to a dream. His dream.

Addam had hauled him across the courtyard by the back of his tunic – Jaime cursed and spat and yelled at both him and Brienne. Fools, the pair of them. There were men all around this place and that damnable tower was a death trap. If he didn’t have steel in his hand …

But Addam hadn’t taken him back to the tower. He’d dragged him out onto the fields where, incongruously, he had a horse and carriage waiting. He kicked open the doors and threw Jaime inside.

Jaime fell on his arse, his feet tangled in his cane. It was then that he noticed he had his boots on the wrong feet.

He also noticed that the carriage was packed. Bags, clothes, food. Weapons.

He looked at Addam. “She said no?”

Addam looked like he was chewing a wasp.

Jaime laughed. “She’d rather stay here and defend my sorry arse.”

“Stay in here.” Addam slammed the door.

So, he had. He’d stayed there listening to the battle, the screams, the flight of arrows and the clash of swords.

Then he’d had a fit.

He felt it coming on, that strange vibration in his head that blurred his vision, took away the clarity of his senses. He barely had time to pull his belt off and jam it between his teeth before he knew no more.

He woke in a puddle of piss with a banged head and a bloody mouth. Disoriented. Groaning. His muscles stiff and hurting.

Jaime pulled the bottle he had stolen from the maester’s chamber that afternoon out of his pocket. Milk of the poppy. He put a couple of drops on his tongue and swallowed them with a moan. He lay back among Addam’s bags and let the feeling wash over him. Wrap him up and hold him close.

Honestly, it felt better than love, better than sex. Not better than Cersei, of course, but it took the edge off that pain as well, so he didn’t mind. It meant he could sit here in the middle of a battle with blood in his hair and piss in his breeches and feel perfectly content. Like he was basking on the beaches near Casterly Rock, a warm breeze on his skin and his sister’s fragrant hair falling around his face while they kissed.

He fell asleep and dreamed that he was dead.

Dead beneath the bricks, the dust of them dry in his mouth, the pain of his injuries throbbing and everywhere. Dust and pain and darkness, but Cersei was warm. He’d died in her arms, and everything was perfect.

As it should be.

But …

But –

There was a baby. A baby crying in the darkness of his death, wailing, miserable. It cried and cried and needed him.

He stood up, shrugged off the bricks and he was whole and tall and flawless once again. He even had his right hand.

He staggered through the wreckage, the babe’s cries loud and haunting. He turned over brick after brick after brick (with both hands – _both_ hands!) to try to find out where the wails were coming from. Always it seemed to be a little further and a little further.

Then always, _always_ …

That dawning realisation. The thought he kept most private, locked away. That even as he’d seen her, even as he’d run to her and held her, even as he’d surrendered to her, his traitor of a brain had thought the thought …

Cersei’s belly had been flat.

Jaime woke with a gasp to the darkness of the carriage. Orange light bloomed through the curtains, bright and terrible. Something was burning. Everything was burning. Was he awake?

Belatedly, he remembered the attack. The King had come for him, he knew. Brienne and Addam were out there fighting. It didn’t look like they were winning.

Was he awake?

His head felt thick and fuzzy as it often did after he’d had a fit and his tongue was numb from the drops of poppymilk. He smelled like piss, and his head whined with pain where he had banged it on the floor. He was awake.

So why, then, could he still hear that baby crying?

He heard screaming – some poor soul caught in the fire. He heard horses, loose and panicked, galloping to and fro. People shouting, distantly. But he could definitely hear a baby crying.

He got out of the carriage.

Outside was a vision of all the hells, flaming and burning and wreckage and death. Thick black smoke poured across the sky and everything was well alight. Jaime could feel the heat of it from here.

Still the baby cried.

The baby …

Sapphire!

Jaime’s heart leapt into his mouth. There was only one baby on the farm, of course. Sapphire was crying. Sapphire was crying.

He grabbed his cane and hobbled back towards the farm. The ground was frozen hard, but the top had grown soft in the heat from the fires. Mud fouled his boots, tripped him and sank his cane. He stumbled along towards the sound.

As he reached the edge of the buildings, someone ran past him. It was a woman wearing bloody armour, her pale face streaked with soot and blood and mud. Her long hair streamed behind her like ribbons in the wind.

She was pursued by a soldier – a tall blank-faced man in black and gold. Jaime froze, but the man didn’t stop. Didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate. He looked right through Jaime, as if he wasn’t there at all. Ran past him, after the woman.

Still, Sapphire cried.

Jaime limped on, past the wreckage of the barn. Past the smoking ruin of the stables and the crater where the tree once stood. The tree itself lay sprawled and smoking across the courtyard, its branches still ablaze. Arrows stuck out of everything.

Now there were bodies. Some he recognised – the old woman who helped him change his bedsheets, the boy with the red hair whose name he couldn’t remember. The little girl with eyes like Myrcella who liked to feed the cats.

Then, over by the tower, his hands bound behind him and his head severed from his body, Maester Smallwood. The man who had hoped he would be Grand Maester, the man who had nursed Jaime back to health.

Jaime had a pang of regret for the things he’d said that morning. Smallwood was an ambitious man and had been stingy with the poppymilk, but he had never once complained about the amount of times he’d been awoken to attend to Jaime’s fits. Nor the times that Jaime had cursed at him, thrown things at him, said hurtful things designed to wound.

Sapphire still cried.

The farmhouse was well alight – flames licked at the upstairs windows. Two more soldiers bearing the King’s arms walked past, their gaze fixed dead ahead. Jaime tried to duck out of sight, but stumbled over his twisted feet instead and fell on his arse in front of them. Neither of them saw him. They didn’t even break their stride.

Jaime got to his feet and hobbled on.

He thought the crying came from the farmhouse – which horrified him. Surely Brienne would not have left her inside? Nothing could survive in there – even outside, the smoke pouring from the building made him cough and choke and his eyes stream.

The heat was horrendous, too, he couldn’t get close. But still she cried and cried and cried.

His skin itched with the sound of it; his head rang and his belly hurt. So much like his dream.

Sapphire. Sapphire. _Sapphire_.

He circled back around the back of the building, ignored by two more soldiers as he went. Trying to see if there was somewhere that wasn’t fire-touched. Trying to see if there was some way in.

_Sapphire Sapphire Sapphire_

No … she wasn’t in the farmhouse … she was …

He moved off to the east, searching around. There was a small patch of grass, withering in the heat of the fire – it sounded like the cries came from there.

Jaime tripped and fell on his arse. Not an unusual occurrence, but this was different. His knee banged on something hard as he went down. A trapdoor. He pulled it up, flung it open.

The smell hit him immediately – so strong it was a physical force. He took two steps back and almost vomited. Shit – human shit. This was a privy pit.

The cries were louder now – she was … _no._ Surely not. Surely, she couldn’t be …

He looked up – above was the buttressed side of the farmhouse and the upstairs hung out over him. If someone had dropped her …

He forced himself closer to the open trapdoor, trying to peer into the darkness. The light from the fire illuminated a flagstone slope, likely where the farm boys took the shit out in carts to spread on the fields. He could hear the babe’s wails even louder now, echoing around the pit. There was no mistake about it – Sapphire was in there.

Jaime leant further in; it was almost pitch black, only the thinnest sliver of light fell across the pool of slurry, glowing orange in the fires. He squinted. Could he –

Yes. There was something – something white and luminous floating on the surface. It moved a little. Lifted.

“Jaime?”

A voice in the darkness, pale and pained and strained.

It was Brienne. He plunged into the pit without stopping to think.

He waded towards her through the shit – it was only waist-deep thankfully, but he hoped to all the gods he didn’t stumble, or even worse, have a fit right now.

She was on her back, only her chest and head afloat in the shit, cradling a huge bundle of furs. The wailing came from the bundle – it was Sapphire.

 _Sapphire_ …

“What in all the hells are you doing in here?” he asked as he grabbed them both.

Brienne cried out – sharp and agonised.

“Are – are you hurt?”

She gave a short nod, her jaw trembling.

“What – where?”

“Back maybe? Legs –”

“Can you feel your legs?”

She nodded. “They hurt.”

“I’ll get you out.”

“H-how?

“I’ll pull you.”

“No! Take Sapphire – it hurts floating, there’s no chance I can walk. Take Sapphire!”

“What – you want to stay here and wait to die?”

“I’ll get us killed!”

“They can’t see me.”

“Wh-what?”

“The King’s men. They walked right past me, didn’t even look at me.”

“The Black Hole …”

He had no idea what she meant, but also there wasn’t time for questions. He hooked his stumped arm under her body, wrapped it around her breastplate and pulled.

She howled at once, her hands going tight on Sapphire’s furs.

“No!” she cried. “It’s no good, you’ll have to leave me.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t save you from that bear pit only to leave you behind in a privy pit.”

He pulled her again, bracing his feet wide on the bottom of the pit so he didn’t lose his balance.

“It hurts too much.”

“Shut up and take it like a knight. It can’t be worse than childbed, surely?”

She screwed up her face as he dragged her again, her breath coming in little explosive pants through her teeth. “Oh, it is! It’s _worse_.”

“Worse than drowning in shit? I don’t think so.”

He had her all the way to the slope now – he started to drag her out backwards. The scream she gave when her arse touched the flagstones was truly bloodcurdling.

“I – I can’t!” she panted.

“Yes you can.” He dragged her again.

“No,” she begged. “Not like this. Find something, make a sled … pull me on that.”

“I can’t pull a sled with one hand.”

She groaned but nodded at him to pull her again. This time she got a little of the weight off her arse with her heels but still cried with pain the whole way.

He got her out of the trapdoor, but stumbled over the wooden frame and, slippery with shit, she fell from his grasp to land on her arse on the gravel. She screamed and wept with pain. The farm was still teeming with soldiers, but despite the noise they were making, Brienne and Sapphire both, not one of them so much as glanced in their direction.

“I don’t understand it,” he said, but Brienne was too busy sobbing to pay much attention.

“I can’t do this,” she whimpered. “Please, just run me through with my sword and get it over with.”

“Craven,” he told her and picked her up again.

It was much harder up here – dragging her great wet, armoured bulk across the courtyard towards the fields was torturously slow. His useless twisted legs tripped on every piece of uneven ground and he dropped her more times than he could count.

“Please,” she begged after she had vomited from the pain. “I’m going to die anyway – infection or internal bleeding or – or something horrible –”

“No you won’t.”

This wasn’t working. Jaime dropped to his knees and shuffled instead, dragging her with him. To his surprise, it was much easier – it was his lower legs that had been so badly broken in King’s Landing. Apparently, he could still knee-walk like a whole man.

“What are you going to do?” she groaned. “Drag me all the way to Casterly Rock?”

He shook his head. “Don’t be stupid. That would be the first place they’d look.”

“Then what?”

“Addam has a carriage. All stocked up ready for the two of you to run away together.”

“Addam? Where is he?”

“I have no idea. Probably in one of those burning corpse piles out by the barn.”

Brienne swallowed. “Everyone is dead.”

“Not us,” Jaime said grimly. “Not Sapphire.”

She nodded, and her arms went tighter around the wailing bundle of furs. She looked more determined to survive, but it didn’t stop her groaning and screaming every time they moved.

The muddy terrain of the field was even worse, dragging her through the lumps and bumps where it had been ploughed was hellishly difficult and hurt her even more.

Trying to get Brienne up the steps into the carriage was so bad that she, perhaps mercifully, passed out. What was not so good was that in passing out, her arms went slack and she lost her grip on Sapphire, who then rolled back into the mud. Jaime had no fucking clue whether to drop Brienne and grab the babe or haul Brienne into the carriage while she was still unconscious and go back for Sapphire.

In the end, he chose the latter, fearing that he might never get Brienne up these steps again if he let go now. He dumped her unconscious form on the floor of the carriage and jumped back out again, slipping on the steps and twisting his knee painfully.

Sapphire was _still_ crying. The sound bored into his mind and ate at his wits. Should he put her in the carriage with her mother, even though Brienne was unconscious?

But Brienne was injured, maybe dying. If she died … No. He couldn’t bear the thought of it. Another dead woman and a child crying alone in the darkness for her father …

He’d go mad.

He gathered Sapphire into the crook of his stumped arm. Brienne would hate that, he knew. She had never let him carry Sapphire, even across the room, lest he have a fit or fell with her in his arms. She was in no position to object now, was she.

He tried to rock Sapphire and shush her, whisper soft words, but she was well beyond that. She needed her mother and her milk. Her father was a poor substitute, particularly when that father was _him._

Slowly, carefully and painstakingly, Jaime pulled Sapphire up with him into the driver’s seat of the carriage. Holding her as close as the furs permitted. Should he strap her to him? It would stop him dropping her if he stumbled. But if he had a fit and fell off the carriage, she’d come with him.

Addam’s bay horse waited patiently – it was a credit to Addam and a virtue of all the battles the animal had seen that it hadn’t bolted at all the chaos going on around it.

What did he call it? It had a stupid name, Jaime seemed to recall.

_Sunchaser_

That was right. Sunchaser. Even here, in the midst of all that was going on, it made Jaime want to roll his eyes. Addam had such a flair for the dramatic.

Jaime shifted Sapphire onto his lap, balancing her between his arms and legs, not at all certain she was secure, not at all certain she wouldn’t roll right off as soon as he started the carriage moving. Should he unwrap her from the furs? She would be easier to hold. But he was covered in shit and it was freezing cold. The furs were all that protected her.

He coiled the reins around his single hand, hoping that Sunchaser would hear his commands over the din coming from Sapphire. She had her mother’s cavernous mouth, he noticed sourly – no wonder she was so loud.

Nonetheless, the horse pulled slowly off the muddy field and into the courtyard. Past at least two dozen of the King’s men. Again, they didn’t turn so much as a hair.

Jaime drove the carriage right out of the splintered front gates, Sapphire still screaming in his arms, and no one so much as looked at them.

Beyond the shroud of smoke and fire, the sun was beginning to come up. Jaime headed for the forest, sticking to the road only at first and then urging Sunchaser to pull the carriage off down an old track. It had been many years – many _decades_ in fact – since he had last visited the farm, a boy under the care of his grandfather.

He thought he knew where this led, but the track quickly petered out into mud and slush and ended at the bank of a river. The carriage was bogged down and the path so narrow it looked beyond Sunchaser’s ability to turn around without overturning the whole thing.

Jaime could hear Brienne moaning in pain again from inside, calling his name, desperate and delirious. He drew Sunchaser to a halt and slithered out of the driver’s seat with Sapphire in his arms.

Gods it was impossible to walk in mud like this on his fucked-up legs. He’d dropped his cane somewhere back at the farm, probably when he had realised that he had to get into the privy pit and now he fell repeatedly, stumbling to his knees. Once again, he ended up crawling to the carriage door.

He fumbled it open to see that Brienne was conscious again, white-faced and shuddering with pain. She blinked in the early morning sunshine.

“Where are we?” Her voice sounded raw from all the screaming she had done.

“In the forest,” he panted, getting back to his feet and shuffling inside.

“Is Sapphire all right? Is she hurt?”

He shrugged. “She’s noisy enough.”

“She’s hungry, tired and scared. Give her to me.”

He passed the bundle of furs back to her and she tried to sit up before crying out again.

“Lie still!” he urged her.

“Help me,” she begged. “Get my breastplate off, she needs milk, it will calm her.”

“You’re covered in shit, Brienne. You can’t put your teat in her mouth like that – we have to clean you first.”

She groaned. “How?”

“There’s a river out there.”

“You think I can get in a river?”

“I’ll drag you again.”

“No! Gods … please no.”

He sighed, exasperated, but she had a point. The shock of a freezing cold river would probably do for her even if he didn’t fall in face first and drown them both. He looked around them. His eyes fell on Sunchaser’s feed bucket. “I’ll get water.”

“How?”

He bent over to get the bucket, but overbalanced and tumbled back to his knees. His stump caught the bucket and then the floor, making him yelp.

“Jaime!”

He glared at her as he dragged himself back to his feet. “Don’t! I can fetch a fucking bucket of water.”

She had a point, though. If he had a fit, if he fell in the river and drowned, she and Sapphire were fucked.

As soon as he got out of the trailer door, he dropped back to his knees and then to his belly, slithering towards the riverbank through the snow and mud. He leaned over the edge to dip the bucket in the fast-flowing water. At least this way if he had a fit, they would only lose the bucket.

The water was freezing, and he had no way to warm it.

Back in the carriage, Sapphire continued to scream, endlessly and miserably. Jaime shoved the bucket into the carriage door and closed it behind him to keep out some of the cold.

“Help me,” groaned Brienne. Her fingers worked shakily on her swordbelt.

Jaime crawled to her side, fumbling with the buckle. He took a double-take at her sword - it was caked in shit, but it was very distinctive.

“You _did_ keep Oathkeeper?” he accused.

She shook her head but didn’t say anything more. He pulled it off her and dumped it to the side.

He tugged angrily at the buckles on her breastplate until she shoved his hand away and undid them herself. The motion hurt her, though, her fingers trembling and a low whine coming from her mouth.

“How did you land in that pit?” he asked as he undid the laces of her pauldrons. “Arse first?”

She nodded. “I wanted to shield Sapphire. I curled around her. I thought we’d sink but shit … it’s not like water. It _hurt_.”

She unlaced her gambeson and he pulled it out from underneath her as gently as he could. Her tunic was soaked with shit and sweat and milk and he couldn’t help but notice how her teats heaved against the wet fabric as she tried to cope with the pain.

Her teats were much bigger, since she’d had the babe. Rounder and fuller and not so pointy. Where before he had been able to cover one completely with his palm, now they would be big enough to overspill his hand. Bulge between his fingers when he squeezed.

A ridiculous thought. Completely inappropriate.

He let her unlace her tunic and averted his eyes when she opened it and painstakingly pulled her arms from the sleeves. He took it from her without a word, dumping it on the pile.

He wet a rag in the freezing water and passed it to her. She groaned at the cold but used it to scrub herself of the shit as best she could. Every motion was agonising, and she cried with pain as she tried to reach to clean around her ribs.

In the end, fed up with her whimpering, he grabbed the rag from her and finished the job himself. Then she tried to drag Sapphire towards her and failed at that, too. Jaime had to unwrap the babe from the furs and pass her over.

The babe snuffled frantically for her breast, but Brienne couldn’t turn to give it to her so again he had to pick her up and shift her weight onto Brienne’s belly and move Sapphire’s head up to her teat. Sapphire latched on with a smack despite the unusual angle, still snivelling even as she suckled. Brienne relaxed visibly, kissing the top of her babe’s head and wrapping her arms about her.

Jaime couldn’t seem to keep his traitorous eyes off her. Her belly was softer, too – she’d been left with a little pouch that overhung her breeches, though she didn’t seem to have the spiderwork of red-and-white lines that Cersei had after birthing.

 _Cersei_ …

“Take your breeches off,” he mumbled.

Her eyes went to him, wide and fearful for a second before defiance set her jaw. “Why?”

“Because you’re covered in shit?” he reminded her. “And because we’d best see what you’ve done to yourself.”

Brienne nodded, that same fear back in her eyes. Keeping one arm wrapped around Sapphire, she tugged at the laces just below that new little bulge of belly. She unlaced them with no problems but getting them off was another matter. Even the touch of fabric sliding over her arse hurt her enough to make her scream again and jolted Sapphire from her latch, which made _her_ scream again. Bending forward to try to shuck them down her legs was the same.

Jaime knelt wordlessly between her knees, using his hand to work the shit-caked breeches off her hips. He noticed right away that she hadn’t bothered with smallclothes – probably she had dressed quickly when the ruckus began.

He was terrified that the sight of her cunt would arouse him – he had never knelt between her legs and taken her breeches off when he hadn’t been about to put his tongue inside her.

But _gods_ – he needn’t have worried. Beneath her breeches, Brienne’s pale flesh was black and purple with ugly bruises. They covered her left hip, spidering like dark fingers across her cunt and under one of her arse cheeks. He knew then what she had done.

“I think you’ve broken your pelvis,” he told her as he eased her boots off and threw them and her breeches on the pile of shit-covered clothes and armour. “Fractured it, at least. The same happened to one of my squires when he fell from his horse. It looked just like that.”

Brienne closed her eyes.

“He landed on his arse as well.”

“Did-did he live?”

Jaime nodded. “He had to stay in bed for several moons until it healed.”

“Several moons?”

That, of course, was dependent on her not having an infection or any other internal injuries that would kill her. If he hadn’t made things worse by dropping her all those times.

“We don’t _have_ a bed,” she said quietly.

He cleaned her legs without a word, taking another slow trip on his belly to the river for more water. She shivered from the cold and shuddered with the pain as he washed each of her long legs in turn, but finally, she was shit-free.

He rooted around in Addam’s bags to find her something fresh to wear – came up with a pair of fancy embroidered breeches in forest green and a loose tunic that tied in the front. Of course, he had to help her to put them on and she was still shuddering from the cold and the pain, so then he had to find a cloak to cover her and Sapphire, who was _finally_ silent.

She clung to her mother’s breast, her eyes closed and her breathing slow and steady. Content at last. She really was the most beautiful little girl.

What was he going to do if Brienne died?

He pushed that thought away. Hard. It was _Brienne_.

But it had been _Cersei_ , too. Brilliant, wild, tempestuous, passionate Cersei, larger than life and more beautiful than a thousand suns, fierce as fire and as smart as a whip. She was dead, nonetheless. _Dead,_ and their child with her.

Sulkily, Jaime took the opportunity to shuck his own shit-smeared clothes and wash down in the bucket. He too dressed in some of Addam’s finest clothes, and took a pair of his boots too, though they were a little large for his feet.

He threw his clothes onto the pile with hers, and something fell out of them as he did. It was a bottle. It rolled across the floor of the carriage, both his and Brienne’s eyes on it.

He dove for it, tripping over Addam’s too-big boots and falling to his knees. Snatched it off the floor.

“What is that?” she asked.

For a moment, a terrible moment, Jaime wanted to run. Run away with it, keep it for himself, drink it all and sink into the beautiful oblivion it promised.

“Milk of the poppy,” he said. “I took it from Smallwood’s chamber this afternoon. I’d – I’d quite forgotten it.”

The bottle was still sealed, the contents uncontaminated by the privy pit.

“Do you want some?”

She could have done with it before he’d dragged her all the way across the farm, he thought. All the way here.

She looked for a moment like she wanted to refuse. Like she wanted to be knightly and endure the pain, like it was more honourable somehow.

But she nodded, a sad little look crossing her face as she did. “P-please.” It reminded Jaime of how she’d begged him, in the courtyard at Winterfell. Begged him to stay with her, begged him to love her.

He unsealed the bottle. Shuffled to her side on his knees.

“Not too much,” she said. “I don’t know if it gets in the milk. Sapphire …”

He nodded, squeezed the bulb on the dropper just a little. “One drop.”

She nodded too. “I don’t want to –”

But she opened her mouth like a baby bird waiting for food and he dropped a single drop of it onto her tongue. She swallowed and closed her eyes.

He knelt by her side and watched her while it took effect, watched the pained lines on her face smooth out, watched her muscles relax and her body loosen. Sapphire was fast asleep and as Brienne’s hold relaxed, she slid from her chest.

Jaime caught her. Picked her up and tried to settle her by her mother’s side, but Sapphire didn’t want that. She cried as soon as she was put down and he had to pick her up again to hush her. She snuggled against the warmth of his chest and fell back asleep.

He shifted her to his stumped arm and went to see about freeing the carriage from the mud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who has followed the first part of the story and I really hope you have enjoyed seeing these events from Jaime's POV. A trillion thanks for all the amazing comments and kudos and discussions, they have all been awesome to read and to participate in.
> 
> The hugest of thanks to the ever-brilliant CaptainTarthister, who never fails to steer me right. She keeps me afloat and her boundless enthusiasm for this story, even when I am plagued with doubt, is the most wonderful thing in the world.
> 
> As always, I'm going to be posting updates and teasers for this story on my Twitter, [@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister), so please follow me and come say hi. I love to chat about it!


	2. Cranberry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne are still on the run.

Jaime was in the deepest of the seven hells.

He’d had no sleep – and consequently had two fits in the space of an hour as the sun came up. The first hadn’t mattered so much – he’d been on his knees by the river trying to scrub some of the shit out of the furs Sapphire had been wrapped in. They were by far the warmest thing they had available and the nights were miserably cold in the carriage.

When the fit happened, he’d simply keeled over to the side onto the furs, pissing a very smart pair of Addam’s leather breeches, but doing no other damage to himself or anything else.

The second fit had been more of a problem.

That time, he was driving the carriage, trying to negotiate some boggy ground where the river, choked with last night’s snow, had overflowed its banks. He’d felt the fit coming on and tried to stop the carriage and climb down, but had stumbled and fallen onto his face just as it began. He had woken to find himself right beside Sunchaser, Addam’s big bay nudging him gently with his nose.

Jaime considered himself lucky – a fall from that height could easily have broken his neck. Instead, he sported a big lump on his forehead and a split lip too. Brienne hadn’t so much as remarked on it.

Of course she hadn’t. She was still laid out on the floor of the carriage, groaning like a sow giving birth. Yelling for him every time she needed to take a piss, or even worse, a shit.

That was the worst, he thought. She couldn’t squat or crouch and she wouldn’t contemplate just shitting herself where she lay, so he’d been dragging her to the carriage door and seating her across his lap, face-to-face, with her weight on his spread thighs, so she could shit out of the doorway.

Of course, taking a shit really hurt her, so he then had to endure fifteen minutes of her wailing and whimpering and clinging to him and hoping to the gods she didn’t shit on his boots.

Jaime tried to go away inside.

But it was impossible. Every time he got there, every time he was embraced by the summer warmth of his beautiful Cersei, there was Brienne. Grabbing his arm or wrenching his shoulder or groaning in his ear.

He hoped these woods really were deserted; if anyone happened on them in this position it would look like the weirdest fucking anyone had ever done.

Just to add to his woes, Sapphire had chosen yesterday to start crawling, too. With a day’s practice under her belt, she was _everywhere_. He’d had to move all of Addam’s bags, all the weapons, all the food. Everything that she might put in her mouth, everything sharp, everything small enough for her to choke on. He hadn’t realised just how much there was in the world that was dangerous to a babe.

Brienne couldn’t exactly supervise her, so now he could only drive the carriage while Sapphire fed or slept. _Her_ shit was a problem, too. Despite being a father of three, Jaime had never before changed a babe’s napkin, a notion which staggered Brienne.

He’d brusquely reminded her that House Lannister was _far_ above House Tarth in status – and his children had been ostensibly royal babes, as well. Even Cersei had never changed her own child.

A large portion of his days since the escape revolved around trying to wrap torn strips of Addam’s tunics around a wriggling babe’s arse and fasten them with one hand, only to have her shit down her leg moments later. He’d stayed close to the river so they had access to drinking water, but now he spent more time washing shitty napkins than he did eating or sleeping or moving them on.

Jaime hobbled back to the carriage, three napkins draped over his stumped arm, soaked in freezing water. Wringing them out with one hand was near-impossible, drying them in this cold took days, even hung from the back of the carriage. Sooner or later, they would run out of Addam’s clothes.

He was shivering by the time he stumbled through the carriage door, stepping over Brienne’s legs as she lay beneath the furs feeding Sapphire.

“Jaime,” she whispered.

“What _now_?” he barked.

“I was going to say be quiet, she’s falling asleep.”

Sapphire lifted her head from Brienne’s nipple to smile at Jaime. She did not look sleepy in the least.

He sighed and wrapped himself in a thick cloak to try to get warm. He should move the carriage on again, while Sapphire fed and possibly slept, but the thought of sitting in that exposed driver’s seat in the perishing cold when all he wanted was to get warm and fall asleep was not tempting.

He looked longingly at the bottle of poppymilk up high on the luggage shelf. What he wouldn’t give to slip a couple of drops on his tongue right now and sink into oblivion for a while. Feel Cersei’s touch again, her sweet breath on his lips as they kissed.

But he couldn’t. They had one bottle, and Brienne needed it. She truly did.

So on top of all his other miseries, he was nauseous and had a roiling bellyache. Chills and sweats at the same time. His shit was like water, too, and it felt like insects were crawling all over his skin. Last night when he’d given Brienne her dose before bed, a droplet had fallen onto the furs by his knee and it had taken all his strength not to bend down there and suck it back out again.

He huddled against the door in his cloak. Promising himself that he would go out there as soon as he could feel his fingers.

“Your brother is dead,” Brienne said suddenly.

He looked up at her sharply.

She looked regretful, as if that hadn’t quite been the way she had intended to tell him. Chewed her lip. “Addam told me. The King, he – he executed him.”

Jaime swallowed.

“I’m sorry.”

He couldn’t speak for a moment – words seemed to dissipate on his tongue.

“I thought you may have guessed, after what happened back at the farm, but –”

“He was playing with fire,” Jaime said. Cutting her off. “Foolish, really, for a clever man. Plotting treason against a king with such powers.”

Brienne was silent. Her big blue eyes searched his face. “Jaime …”

He looked away. “So that’s it. I’m the last of the Lannisters. So much for my father’s thousand-year dynasty.”

Her eyes slid to Sapphire, and so did his. Neither of them said anything.

“Not that it matters; it’s not as though I can take my seat at Casterly Rock.”

“I suppose not.”

He cleared his throat. Cleared it again. “I should – we should ride some more. While there’s still a bit of daylight.”

He fled the carriage, not wanting to see her face any more, not wanting her sadness and her pity. He strapped Sunchaser back into the harness and clambered up into the driver’s seat, yanking on the reins a little hard.

He was crying.

He hadn’t realised it at first – the cold and his addled head hadn’t let him feel it. But his tears were hot, and his throat was burning and suddenly there was a sob emerging from his mouth.

 _Tyrion_.

Another sibling he hadn’t saved.

Tyrion … his broad smile, his sparkling eyes. Tyrion with his droll laugh and snappy retorts. Tyrion … his brother. His brother who he should have been there to protect. If he’d been whole, and young and strong enough.

If he hadn’t been holed up on the farm being obsessed with _Brienne_.

Always Brienne. _Brienne Brienne Brienne_ … his mind was consumed by her. Ever since she’d brought him back to King’s Landing, ever since he’d confessed his darkest secret to her in the bathtub at Harrenhal.

It hadn’t always been sexual, but it had always been _her_.

Thoughts about her popping into his mind whenever he was alone. Wondering where she was or what she was doing. Sending a squire to check up on her, following her to the training yard while she had still been in King’s Landing. Sending a Septa to make clothes for her because he woke up in a sweaty mess worried that she had nothing to wear and no coin to buy anything with. Thinking of a million little jokes and anecdotes that he wanted to share with her, a million times a day. But when he was with her, not being able to remember a single one and standing in silence with a dumb look on his face.

It was trauma, he knew that now. He and she had shared something, something that had changed him forever. When his whole life had shrunk to pain and fever and humiliation, Brienne of Tarth had been the only kind thing in the world. It was hard to let that go.

And he’d seen her naked, of course. Felt her naked, too, when she’d caught him in the baths at Harrenhal. He’d had no thoughts about her at the time other than that she was _strong_. He remembered the ripple of the muscles in her arms as she held him upright, the strain in her neck. The flush of her skin from the steam. The husky crack in her voice as she’d yelled for help.

 _Strong_.

Sometimes, when he had stood for hours outside Joffrey’s chamber or Tommen’s chamber, he’d had thoughts about that strength again. Unbidden.

Why? He still couldn’t answer that question.

Just that she was there in his head, surly and scowling and gentle and soft. He thought of her hands. Her eyes. The scar on her lip. That frown line she had between her brows, the way her chin blended into her neck in a soft little gulk. What it might feel like to spread her thighs and plunge his aching cock into her hot, wet, hairy cunt. Oh.

There it was.

That thought had terrified him. He had _never_ had that thought, not about anyone but Cersei, and even then …

He and Cersei were pure. Right. Gold on gold, lion on lion. Born together, die together, meant to be together, always. Always …

When he fantasised about Cersei, he thought of her beauty. The green gleam of her eyes, the golden fall of her hair. The way sunlight kissed her skin and gilded her perfection further. How the curve of her breasts and the curve of her hips and the curve of her belly slid through his palms (when he’d had two). Jaime’s fantasies about Cersei were all about _admiring_. Worshipping.

Jaime’s fantasies about Brienne were about _fucking_. Licking, sucking, squeezing, thrusting. Burying himself up to his balls in her cunt or her mouth and _coming_.

It made him feel like shit. He hated it. He hated the way he couldn’t stop thinking about it, the way he couldn’t stop thinking about _her_.

Brienne was upright and honourable, a woman to admire. Innocent, in her way, too. She deserved better than to be the Kingslayer’s dirty fantasy. Cersei deserved better, too. If she’d known he was fantasising about someone so ugly while he was making love to her, if she’d known it was the only way he could bring himself to climax, she would have torn his eyeballs out.

No matter how shit he felt, those thoughts … they wouldn’t go away. No matter how far away he sent Brienne, no matter how infrequently he saw her. No matter how hard he threw himself at Cersei and her cause. He couldn’t get Brienne off his mind. The woman was a disease.

Even after fucking her for near a moon, indulging himself, absorbing himself in _Brienne Brienne Brienne_ , begging Sansa Stark to please let him stay in fucking _Winterfell_ , of all places … even that didn’t get her out of him.

Even at the farm, when he was embroiled in grief and awash with pain, when he’d paid the ultimate price for his selfish obsession, he had been able to think of little else but _her_. He watched her every day, hidden in the shadows by his window where she couldn’t see him. Sometimes tugging his cock as she swung her sword, frantic and frenzied. Other times just _longing_. Consumed by the sight of her legs stepping out from beneath her gambeson, the ugly grimace on her face. Obsessing over her and Addam, boiling with jealousy at the thought of someone else seeing her naked, wanting to murder them both.

Again … he was doing it _again_. His brother had died, by the gods! Tyrion had died and he was here thinking about sex with Brienne. What was the matter with him?

He needed some milk of the poppy. He needed a decent night’s sleep in a real bed without being woken by a screaming babe or a snoring, groaning Brienne.

He needed to get them out of here.

He had found a purse, fat with coin, stashed in one of Addam’s bags yesterday. A not inconsiderable amount. Enough to …

Jaime didn’t know what. They couldn’t risk an inn, or a maester, or going within a mile of Casterly Rock. He would rather have found a bag of food.

Brienne was huge and she ate more than a man, even more now she was feeding a babe. She would need more food still if she were to heal. They were getting dangerously low on the rations Addam had packed – they had maybe a day’s worth left. Hunting or fishing with only one hand was all but impossible.

Last night, Brienne had tied some snares for him from the floor of the carriage, but he hadn’t been able to fix them properly out in the woods. When he had gone back this morning, they had all disappeared or been pulled down.

Below him, Sapphire started to cry again. He cursed and stopped the carriage at once – he could not bear that sound for long, it sounded too much like his dreams.

Sapphire sat up and crawled towards him as soon as he opened the door – Brienne lifted her head from the floor too.

“She’s tired,” she sighed. “But she won’t feed any more. She needs to be rocked.”

Jaime sighed too – it looked as though they were stopping here for the night, then. He gathered Sapphire into his arms, wrapping a blanket tight around her and cradling her to the warmth of his chest. She reached up and yanked on his beard.

He slithered out of the carriage on his arse so as not to drop her and grabbed for the stick he had been using for a cane.

“Don’t go too close to the river,” Brienne warned as he shut the door behind himself. He resisted the impulse to tell her to fuck off, or if she was so concerned, to get the damned babe to sleep by herself.

Of _course_ he wouldn’t go too close to the fucking river.

He walked a grassed path between the trees instead, soft with moss and thick with snow, just in case he stumbled or had a fit and dropped Sapphire.

She _was_ tired – her tugging on his beard grew disinterested, and his footsteps lulled her eyes slowly closed. In a matter of moments, she emitted soft little snores. He tucked the blanket up to her chin (so like Brienne’s) and kissed her forehead.

Who would have thought that fucking such an ugly woman could produce such a beautiful babe? Perhaps he had been bewitched by _her,_ too.

He admonished himself for thinking such a thing. It was just his fatigue talking, and his fear as well. Sapphire was an innocent babe who hadn’t asked to be born to a father such as him. If all had gone right then he would be dead and she would never have known him. None of this was her fault.

Strangely, the thought gave him a little pang. If he had died under the bricks with Cersei, he would never have seen Sapphire. The thought _hurt_ him.

There was suddenly a painful lump in his throat and he had to stop to wipe tears from his eyes. Sapphire was fully asleep now, so he took a moment to lean against a tree and sob.

He wasn’t dead because Tyrion had saved him … _Tyrion_ …

The tears flowed freely for a while, and Jaime let them. Thinking of old times, of games he and his brother had played as boys, of laughter they had shared as men. It had been good to be a Lannister, with the money and the privilege, but it had been difficult, too. The burdens of living up to their father’s expectations, the burdens of being hated and mistrusted because they were sons of Tywin. He and Tyrion had shared that in a way that he and Cersei had not.

Cersei had enjoyed it. She’d liked the hatred and the fear, had used it as a weapon. Jaime had never been any good at that, not really.

Now, it felt lonely to be the last of the Lannisters, and somewhat frightening, too. He’d never been so clever as Tyrion, who had read voraciously since he was a small child. He’d been as beautiful as Cersei, but age and injury had robbed him of that. It had robbed him of the one thing he was truly good at, too.

Without his father, without his brother, without his sister … who was Jaime?

What did it matter that he was even alive? He was Lord of nothing. Presumed dead. A traitor, an oathbreaker and a heartbreaker. Even Brienne had stopped believing in him.

Good, he thought. She was right to. She’d only been thinking with her cunt – if he’d been as ugly and smashed-to-shit as he was now, she would have left him in that bathtub to drown.

The thought made him chuckle, in a bleak, black way. He wiped his eyes and grabbed his stick and prepared to go back.

Through the trees, something caught his eye. Something dark, dark grey. A pile of rocks? No – they were too uniform. He could see them through the trees, further back on the other side of the river. He craned his neck and caught sight of a square-cut stone intersecting them, and one above it, too. It was part of a wall.

He wanted to get closer, but he’d have to cross the river to do it.

There was a rock sticking out in the middle, one he could jump to easily. It was quite wet and possibly slippery, but he didn’t think the river was too deep at this point. He could see the bottom – if he fell in, he would probably keep his feet.

Brienne would have run him through with Oathkeeper if she’d seen him, but he jumped to it anyway. The jolt made Sapphire start a little in his arms, but she didn’t wake. He kept his feet, too.

It was another short hop to the other side, and this time, he did stumble, but caught himself on the bank and only got one of Addam’s too-big boots wet. Sapphire, miraculously, stayed asleep.

Jaime blundered through the trees towards the wall. He could see already that it was a whole structure, a hut of some kind. It didn’t look burned or broken, the roof looked intact.

He could see no signs of life – the window was dirty and there was no candlelight inside. As he rounded the hut, he saw that weeds had grown up into the doorway. He dared to get a little closer.

The area in front had been cleared to make a garden of sorts, though at present it was very overgrown and covered in snow. Jaime limped into it and up to the door.

He dared to press his remaining ear against it to see if he could hear any sounds of life. There was nothing.

Next, he traipsed around to the side and peered through the window. Inside was a bed, a fireplace and lots of hunting equipment. Bows, arrows, a tanning rack too. And on a shelf by the bed – food! Jars of pickled vegetables, fermented fish, dried meat. A winter stash, perhaps.

It was the fireplace though … the thought of being warm. The bed looked big enough for all of them, too – no more trying to sleep on the hard wooden floor of the carriage, squashed by Brienne, freezing and all his muscles in spasm.

He had to get the carriage here. He turned back and jumped the river again, this time without stumbling once.

Night had fallen properly now and in the dark, it was hard to see his way back. He hadn’t walked far, but it was a moonless night and he wished he’d had the presence of mind to light a candle before he’d left. Brienne would be in the carriage in the pitch dark right now too, which he felt bad about.

He could hear things moving around in the woods, branches snapping and leaves rustling. Something big in the trees.

Were there wolves out here? Was it cold enough for them to have moved this far south? Jaime didn’t know. Terror gripped him suddenly, going around his chest like an icy fist. What would he do if he were attacked? He had no sword; he was physically weak.

“Brienne!” he yelled.

The movement near him stopped.

“Brienne!” The rustling started again. The shouting had woken Sapphire, too. She started to cry.

“Jaime?” Brienne’s voice, faint in the distance. He moved towards it.

“Keep shouting!” he yelled again.

“Jaime!” she yelled.

He tripped over something, the iron-hard roots of a tree. Went down hard, banging his knee and elbow in his effort not to drop Sapphire. She cried harder. Was she hurt? He felt her all over with his hand, desperately. He couldn’t see blood or feel anything broken.

“Jaime!” Brienne again. “Are you all right?”

He was back to crawling – he couldn’t risk dropping Sapphire again.

He could hear the river now and he had no idea how close it was. Brienne’s voice grew louder, too.

The rustling in the leaves drew nearer and he could hear breathing now, huge and close and terrifying. It was behind him, over him! He –

Hot breath on the back of his neck. He kicked out desperately, shielding Sapphire with his body as the thing brought its jaws down. He hit something – a leg he thought, and the beast let out a … a whinny?

“Sunchaser?”

The horse let out a snort and nuzzled Jaime’s cheek. Jaime huffed out a near-hysterical peal of laughter and patted Sunchaser’s nose. There was a squelch as he did, and Jaime belatedly realised that his boots were in a great pile of horseshit. Of course they were. It seemed as though his fate was to spend the remainder of his days scrubbing shit.

“Fuck you, Addam,” he said to the night sky. Somehow, he could imagine his bannerman looking down on him and laughing his arse off at his antics with his horse. Tyrion would be there, too, he suspected. Oddly, the thought gave him comfort.

“Jaime?!” called Brienne. He could see the carriage now, a dark box outlined in the dark loom of the trees.

“I’m here,” he called back. “Right outside.”

He staggered back to his feet and limped to the carriage. Flung the door open and passed the howling Sapphire back to her mother.

“You were supposed to rock her to sleep,” she said.

“I did. She woke up again because Addam’s fucking nag decided it wanted to scare the living shit out of me.”

“What?”

He shook his head. “Never mind. I found something. A hut in the woods, just over the river. A huntsman’s hut I think.”

“Whose?”

“How am I supposed to know? There’s no one there; it’s abandoned. But there’s a bed. A fireplace. Food, too.”

“That doesn’t sound abandoned to me.”

“There were weeds over the door. It’s abandoned enough.”

Brienne chewed her lip. “What are you suggesting?”

“We need some time, time enough for you to heal. We can’t risk going anywhere until you can stand upright and swing a sword, at least. And lying on this floor, getting jolted and banged and rolled about every time we go over a tree root, it’s not going to help.”

He knew she couldn’t disagree with that.

Somehow, she still did. “We can’t break in, Jaime. That hut is probably someone’s livelihood.”

“They’re not using it.”

“What if they come back?”

“Then I’ll give them a purse full of Addam’s gold for their trouble.”

She rolled her eyes. “A Lannister always pays his debts?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

“No.”

“No?”

“We can’t.”

“Oh, so you’re just making that decision, are you? For both of us? All of us? Perfectly happy to pass up a chance at survival?”

“We’re knights –”

“Fuck being knights! We’re running out of food and I can’t look after you both and drive the carriage at the same time. You must see that? We’ve made next to no progress through this forest in three days. And you _know …_ it’s only a matter of time before I have a fit at the wrong moment and doom us all.”

Brienne went very white. She _did_ know, he could tell.

“We have a babe to think of; we don’t have the luxury of honour any more.”

“No, we _always_ –”

“Just give it up, Brienne. What are you going to do?” he asked. “How would you stop me from driving this carriage there tomorrow and dumping you in the bed?”

“I couldn’t,” she said.

“Good. Because that’s what I’m going to do at first light.”

She fell silent, scowling her ugliest scowl, watching Sapphire suckle from her teat.

He passed the candle for Brienne to light, but she put it down with a huff. Jaime sat down to kick his shitty boots off out of the doorway and then …

“Oh fuck,” he whispered.

“What?”

The air was thick in his mouth, his vision blurred. He was going to –

“Fit,” he managed. He had a brief feeling of everything going stiff and still and dark before he knew no more.

He woke up lying in Brienne’s arms, the candle between his teeth. In the darkness, Sapphire screamed; the sound rung his head like a bell. Brienne’s eyes were huge and wet and bright and her skin was so white it glowed like the moon. He lifted a hand to stroke her cheek.

She flinched away. He spat the candle out.

“Sorry,” he said. He slurred the word – his tongue was dead steak in his mouth.

Her lip quivered.

“Are you … are you all right?” he asked.

“You fell on me,” she sobbed.

“Fuck … Brienne!” Belatedly he realised that his weight was still on her legs. He rolled off her and she cried out and clutched herself in pain.

His head reeled; pain coursed through him, too, as it so often did after a fit. It roared through his twisted legs and arms and pounded in his head. He was going to puke. He dragged himself to the door, missed the edge and his arm slipped to the step below. He smacked his chin on the doorstep as he went and brought the contents of his stomach up over his shit-covered boots.

When nothing more would come up, he sat in the doorway, shuddering in pain. Blood dripped copiously from his beard. Behind him, Brienne sobbed and Sapphire wailed.

“We’re so fucked without that hut,” he said.

“Please,” Brienne begged. “Please get the poppymilk.”

He nodded, though she probably couldn’t see him in the dark. He could barely stand, though – it felt like his legs were burning, like his bones had melted and were molten liquid in his legs. He grabbed for the bottle and fell to his knees.

His back was in spasm; his teeth clenched and his fingers could barely uncurl to put the bottle on the floor. Brienne grabbed for it, untwisted the lid and pulled out the dropper. Even in the dark, he could see the tears glistening on her cheeks.

“Please,” she said to no one in particular and dripped some of the poppymilk onto her tongue. Her sobs dissolved into a long groan.

Jaime snatched the bottle from her hand.

The fire raced up his spine now, licking the base of his skull and throbbing in his teeth and jaw. All he could do was writhe uselessly on the floor.

He tried to resist, he truly did. But the pain was unbearable, uncontainable. It would send him mad, he thought.

One drop, he told himself. A small one. But he was weak and he took two generous ones, weeping at his own selfishness even as he swallowed them. Brienne needed it far more than he did.

He knew that was not the reason, though. He knew that if the worst came to the worst, that bottle was their way out. A sweet, peaceful death for all of them. That day was drawing closer, he knew. Even with the hut.

Brienne was relaxed now, her eyes on him, droopy and unfocused. She’d manoeuvred Sapphire up onto her chest again and the babe was snuffling as she drank from her teat, also half asleep.

“I love you,” he told her with a smile as the warm, gentle feeling of poppymilk coursed through his veins. “I’m an idiot and I love you both so much.”

“Shut up, Jaime,” she slurred, but she had a smile on her face. She didn’t protest when he lay next to her, pulling the damp furs over them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much, everyone, for the warm welcome you gave the second part of the story! So many apologies for the delay in getting the second chapter out. All sorts have been happening here due to coronavirus etc and when I read it back, it needed a big rewrite which took far longer than anticipated. Thanks too to everyone who gave me comments here, Twitter and Tumblr. I'm so sorry there are some I still haven't managed to reply to.
> 
> Extra thanks to CaptainTarthister for being a champ with this one. She always knows how to wrangle chapters into submission!
> 
> As always, please feel free to come and follow me on Twitter [@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister) for previews, updates and chat. always happy to talk!


	3. Raspberry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne explore the hut.

Jaime ran at the door and shouldered it, hard.

Not hard enough – it shook a little on its hinges and a gap appeared at the top, but the lock stayed firm.

“Try again,” said Brienne, from the carriage.

He made a face. Took a run-up at it and tripped and fell on his arse. Sapphire let out a squeal that sounded very much like laughter. He got to his feet.

“This amuses you?” he asked his daughter with a grin.

He had to take three more runs before the door burst open, splintering the doorframe. It had all but rotted through, there. Jaime tiptoed inside.

All was the same as it had been when he’d found the hut the previous night – the bed, the fireplace, the tools and weapons. The jars of food on the shelf. There were no signs of life in the hut at all – in fact, all that seemed to be living in here were spiders. Cobwebs hung from everything; everything had a thick layer of dust.

“It’s definitely abandoned,” Jaime told Brienne when he came out again.

Brienne wrinkled her brow, but thankfully she had decided to stop arguing with him on this subject. She knew as well as he that without this, they would die. Sapphire would die. Even _her_ knightly honour wouldn't countenance that.

“How are we going to do this?” she asked in a small voice. Her eyes were wide and pleading.

“Not easily,” he admitted. “I can’t think of another way but to drag you.”

Brienne closed her eyes. “That _really_ hurts,” she told him as if he didn’t already know.

“I’ll give you some poppymilk first.”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t want too much. I don’t want it to become … a problem.”

Like _him_ , she meant.

“Nobody _wants_ that,” he told her brusquely.

Sapphire crawled over to Jaime then, holding her arms up to be picked up. That was another problem – what would they do with the babe while he dragged Brienne into the bed? She was so much more mobile now. A thousand ways she could hurt herself if they didn’t watch her.

“Come here,” he told Sapphire, hauling her into his arms and almost slipping in the snow despite his stick. Brienne winced.

He took the babe into the hut to find a place to put her, opening the door and carrying her inside.

“It’s not exactly Casterly Rock,” he warned her. “Your father has fallen a _long_ way.”

She looked around, swinging her head every way she could, her big blue eyes wide.

Where to put her? The bed was big, but not so big she wouldn’t crawl straight off the edge as soon as his back was turned. Scanning the room he could already see dozens of things she could swallow, or break, or hurt herself with if he wasn’t there to watch her, even for the few minutes it would take to get Brienne inside. Gods but having a babe was _such_ a bind.

He had an idea. Shifting her to his right hip and holding her in place with his stumped arm, he took hold of the tanning rack in his hand and pulled it away from the wall. Twisted it around so it was wedged between the wall and the edge of the bed. The base of it was sturdy, and higher than Sapphire could reach; she couldn’t get over it and nor could she pull it over on herself, he thought.

He knee-walked over the bed to put her on the floor behind it.

She cried immediately, reaching up to him again to be picked up. He couldn’t blame her – this was an unfamiliar place, after all, and she had just been wrenched from everything and everyone she knew in the most traumatic way.

“Father will be back in a minute,” he told her softly. But still, it hurt his heart to leave her, it truly did. He wedged the door open with a pile of snow so she could at least see him go to fetch her mother.

“Sapphire’s crying,” said Brienne as soon as he got back to her.

“She’s safe,” he snapped.

He clambered into the carriage and knelt behind her to tuck his arms under her shoulders – she let out a yelp as soon as he tried lifting her.

“Not too late for milk of the poppy,” he said.

“No. I can do this. I’m a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms!” He wasn't sure if she was telling him or herself, but she picked up Oathkeeper and held it tight across her body. A shield and a talisman.

“Of course you can do it,” he told her. “We did it all the way from that privy pit to the field with you in full armour and covered in shit, this is only a few feet.”

She nodded. Screwed up her brow and clenched her teeth. He dragged her again, going all the way to the carriage door in one long pull. Stopped at the edge.

He took his time backing out slowly, careful on the steps on his knees. Brienne braced herself, making her legs as stiff as she could so that she wouldn't bang her arse on the steps on her way down.

He had to stop twice on their way through the garden to let her rest and get her courage to move again, but she endured it and they got there. He pulled her onto the bed and finally, covered in sweat and her face streaked with tears of pain, she collapsed onto the dusty pillows with a groan.

He fetched her some water from the skin and then passed Sapphire to her for a feed Jaime suspected was more for comfort than anything else.

“Gods, a bed feels good,” Brienne sighed as she pulled her tunic open.

He sat on the edge by her legs, watching Sapphire snuggle in close to the warmth of her mother’s teats. Watched Brienne caress her daughter’s little head and kiss her golden curls. She was so gentle with her babe. He’d hated that, at first, when he’d watched the two of them from the window, hated how much Brienne smiled and laughed and kissed her child. Not because he didn’t want to see her happy – he was no monster – but because … because …

Because it hadn’t seemed like Brienne.

Loving her children was Cersei. Brienne’s joy came from the sword, from the thrill of the fight, from her honour. He’d thought he’d understood her. Known her. Seeing Brienne like that, holding her babe above her, smiling and kissing and whirling her around – it had made him realise that he hadn’t known her at all. He hadn’t liked that.

Her eyes were on him now, blue in the winter sunshine through the window.

“Your squire,” she said. “The one who injured himself as I have …”

“Clarreth Butterwell,” Jaime said. “That was his name.” It had always amused him – such an extravagant name for such an average squire.

She tilted her head. “He recovered, yes?”

“Oh yes.”

“Fully? He could … walk? Fight?”

“Yes,” Jaime sighed. Not that it had done the boy much good at Whispering Wood.

“Good,” she said.

“Don’t fret, you won’t be so crippled as I am. It was only a pit full of shit, not the entire Red Keep falling on your head.”

“Good,” she said again. “Because Bran the Broken … He has a date with Oathkeeper.”

It took him a moment to realise what she meant. “You’re going to –”

She nodded. “For Nira. Alara. For Bancey. And for Podrick.”

“Podrick? Podrick is dead?”

Brienne shook her head. “It wasn’t him. Bran had … _twisted_ him somehow. Invaded his mind. Broken him. I had to –”

Whatever she had done, she couldn’t say it aloud. The words seemed to strangle her when she opened her mouth.

“I’m sorry.”

She trembled with rage now, her eyes wet and brimming. “Such a monster should not be on the throne.”

He nodded slowly. “Why couldn't they see me? The King’s men. It was … it was like I was a ghost, and you too, when you were with me.”

That night – it had seemed like a dream. He had been on so much poppymilk at that point that he’d wondered how much of it he _had_ dreamt. But no matter how much he’d thought on it since, he couldn’t make any rational sense of it.

“They said at Winterfell that he’s a warg – is that so?”

“I was Lord Commander of his Kingsguard,” Brienne said. “For three moons, anyway. I saw his powers myself – they’re real enough. He’s more than a warg – the King can see everything. Any events that have happened in the past, if he cares to, but also he can see through the eyes of others in the present, too. I only saw him use animals in that way – but it seems as though he can use _people_ as well. If he’s twisted them enough.”

Jaime let out a breath; it hissed between his teeth.

“But – he can’t see you. Nor anything around you, according to Addam. He doesn’t know it’s you, he just knows there’s something he calls a – a _Black Hole_ around this part of Westeros. He can’t see it or understand it. All he knows is he saw Tyrion’s men go in and out of it. He saw Addam.”

It took Jaime a while to respond. “Why? Why am I his Black Hole? Because I pushed him out the window? Made him what he is?”

“I don’t know.”

“No, it can’t be that – he could see me in Winterfell. Physically, and – and more, too. He knew I was coming; he waited for me in the courtyard the day I arrived. He could see me then.”

Brienne nodded.

“We had a conversation in the godswood that same day. He was ambivalent about what I’d done – said it didn’t matter as it had changed him. Made him not Brandon Stark, he said. Something else.”

“Something else …” echoed Brienne.

“He gave no more detail. And we didn’t speak again.”

“Then it must be something that happened to you after that. Your head injury, your fits?”

“I’m far from the only man in Westeros to have fits.”

She fell silent.

“He thinks I am a threat to him. Not because I am Cersei’s heir, but because he can’t see me.”

“Seeing Tyrion’s men come back and forth towards the farm, in and out of this Black Hole … perhaps he thought your brother had found some way to block his abilities?”

Jaime thought on that a while, too. “We’re safe then, aren’t we. If he can’t see me. So long as we’re – as long as you’re with me?”

Brienne nodded. “We’re safe. But he’s not. We could walk right up to him – put a foot of Valyrian steel through his gut.”

“Brienne …”

“No! He slaughtered my women – good women, all! My friends, my – my … Addam!”

“They could have survived. Addam especially – he’s no green squire.”

Pain flashed across Brienne’s face and Jaime regretted his words at once. Her women, of course, had been exactly that. Green squires. Greener than green.

“Some bard somewhere will write a ballad for them,” he said. “Think of it – the Warrior Maids of the Westerlands. It will be a hit in every tavern from here to the Wall.”

He’d meant it to comfort her, but Brienne’s expression didn’t change. “I’ll _kill_ him,” she said after a moment.

“We’ll talk on it more,” he said, looking away. “When you’ve recovered.”

She said nothing, so Jaime pulled himself to his feet. He had left the stick he had been using for a cane in the carriage and his legs felt stiff and painful after the strain of dragging Brienne into the hut. His left one was all but useless.

“We need a fire,” he said, looking longingly at the fireplace. A bit of warmth in his muscles might loosen them some.

He’d noticed a stack of logs in the corner, enough to last them a couple of days if they were frugal. After that it would be foraging – even if Jaime was physically capable of chopping wood, Addam hadn’t thought to pack an axe. He couldn't see one here in the hut, either.

He limped towards the door, hanging onto the wall.

“Jaime,” Brienne said as he got there.

“Yes?”

“The Red Keep didn’t fall on your head, you know. The only part that collapsed was the basement.”

Jaime gaped. He stumbled out of the hut, holding onto the wall and then the door. Outside, snow was falling again, and Sunchaser had leaned over the fence surrounding the garden to eat some of the grass.

Jaime slipped to his knees and stayed there, his face burning. Had he eaten anything that day, he felt sure it would have come up into the snow.

The only part that had collapsed was the basement?

_Just_ the basement?

He remembered the Sept of Baelor and that lonely vigil he had stood over his father’s body. Wracked with guilt, wracked with sorrow, wracked with terror for what might come now that Tywin was dead. Come the morning, come the funeral, he remembered Cersei sweeping in, drawn and pale and perfect in her black velvet gown.

The bells had rung, again and again, dull and dull and dead and Cersei had said

“ _You killed him by mistake. With stupidity._ ”

Gods … he had done the same to her. Dragged her down to that basement, thinking he was helping her escape, thinking he was saving their child. He remembered how she’d held his hand, running after him the way they had when they were children playing.

Children playing …

Cersei the Maiden and Jaime the Warrior. The Warrior, bold and brave and true.

The Warrior, leading his love to the Stranger. _With stupidity_.

Stupidity.

_“You always were the stupidest Lannister_.”

The bells ringing, again and again now, frantic and desperate in surrender. Far above them as they ran together through the basement, hand-in-hand and Brienne had said

_“You’re not like your sister. You’re not.”_

No – not Brienne. Brienne wasn’t there. It was Cersei crying in the darkness, begging him to stay.

But Cersei hadn’t begged. She hadn’t said a thing when he’d left – why would she? She knew he’d come back, hateful as always. Always she’d known he’d be back for their child.

Their child, crying in the darkness.

Sapphire.

_Sapphire_ …

Jaime scrambled to his feet, his heart pounding in his chest. His hand went to his hip for Widow’s Wail, but of course it wasn’t there.

He looked up to see Sunchaser staring at him, chewing on some grass. Addam’s horse snorted.

“Fuck,” Jaime said, to no one in particular. He limped to the carriage to fetch his stick. Unhitched Sunchaser and hobbled him so he had no more night-time wanderings. Jaime scrambled around in the carriage for Addam’s fire lighting kit and went to find some kindling from the forest.

Both Brienne and Sapphire were asleep when he returned, snuggled together in the soft warmth of the bed. They looked so alike, both asleep flat on their backs, their noses and eyes and mouths exactly the same.

Jaime was reminded of the night he’d left Brienne, the night he’d snuck out of their room in Winterfell to ride south to his sister.

He’d known he was leaving as soon as Sansa Stark had spoken about Cersei’s execution. It was like a torch had gone out in his head, like he was already dead.

Born together, die together. Cersei was going to die – that meant he was, too. It had been as simple as that.

He’d wanted to leave then and there, but Brienne had clung to him all day, trying small talk, trying sweetness and affection to cheer him up. She’d even held his hand at the dinner table until he’d pointed out he couldn’t eat at all if she did that.

He’d tried to leave after they had eaten, too, while she’d used the privy, but of course she’d taken the quickest shit in history and he’d barely had time to get his boots on. She’d looked at him with scared wide eyes, when she saw him, but she hadn’t said anything. He’d taken the boots back off.

She’d kissed him. Taken his face in both her hands and kissed him so hard they banged teeth. Pulled his tunic out of his breeches and slid her cold hands under it, onto his warm skin, making him squirm against her.

His traitorous cock had been so hard for her, as it always was. He remembered clinging to the pillows moaning as she’d sucked him in her big, warm, welcoming mouth, awash in a drowning sea of pleasure. He’d hated himself for that, the selfish _taking_ of it. Dead men didn’t need their cocks sucked.

He hadn’t been able to bear the intensity so he’d taken her clothes off slowly, just to try and slow things down a bit. He remembered kisses, nibbling along the soft skin of her ribs and up into the hollow between her breasts. He remembered the nibbles turning to bites; he remembered wanting to mark her skin. He remembered her long, strong fingers in his hair, on his shoulders, on his back. Pushing him and urging him and wanting him.

He’d rolled on top of her and taken her with her bent knees gathered into the crooks of his elbows, deep and grunting, him or her he didn’t know. He remembered her eyes, half-lidded and glittering in the candlelight. He remembered the taste of her breath, the silken heat of her tongue.

He lasted about four thrusts before he’d had to stop. Waited until that agonising surge receded and thrust again. And again. And again. Stopped again, right on the panting edge. He remembered curling his toes in the furs. He remembered the throb of his cock in her cunt. The bend of her legs in his arms.

He’d thrust again and lost it, falling off the edge hard enough to make his belly drop. He remembered the sounds he’d made as his seed squirted. He remembered how exquisite it had felt. Knowing it was the last time he would ever lay with Brienne.

The sex had been poor the whole time, if he was honest – he’d had no control whatsoever. For some reason, fucking Brienne had turned him into a green boy – on some nights, he’d been lucky to get his cock out of his breeches before spilling.

He liked to think his tongue had made up for the shortcomings of his cock, though. Gods, over that moon they were together, he must have spent hours chin-deep in her cunt.

He’d done it that night, too, after he’d spent. Maybe as a goodbye. Maybe as a sorry. Maybe because he wanted to be somewhere warm before he had to go out into the cold, the dark, before he had to go to his death.

And part of him had wanted the world to disappear, for nothing else to exist but Brienne’s cunt. She filled his senses, soft and wet and welcoming, sweet and rich and warm. Just like her.

He made her come twice, two arching, thrusting, groaning peaks where she’d called his name again and again and dug into his head with painful fingers.

She’d fallen asleep easily after that. He remembered the little smile on her face. The blissful heaviness of her limbs.

He’d dressed at once, flying around the room on tiptoes, but still, it had taken him almost an hour to leave her.

He remembered staring into the flames of her fireplace, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure she was asleep. He would get up, then sit down again. Walk to the door sometimes.

He’d tried so hard to think of Cersei. Tried so hard to want to see her.

What had been wrong with him?

Jaime thought on it now as he set the kindling in the hut’s fireplace, including the last piece of parchment that he’d been using to wipe Sapphire’s arse while they were holed up in the carriage. It had been letters of some kind, from Addam’s mother, but he’d grabbed them without realising after Sapphire had decided to decorate her back in her own shit in the middle of the night.

If he hadn’t gone, Cersei would have lived.

If Tyrion hadn’t set him free.

If the Onion Knight hadn’t agreed to help.

If Brienne had … if she’d …

_It wasn’t Brienne’s fault_.

The thought hit him like a blow to the head, almost knocking him to the floor. It was _him_ , he’d set the whole thing in motion. _Him_ , his hubris, his pride. His stupidity.

He’d killed Cersei with his stupidity. Leading her down into the collapsing basement. Holding her still instead of running. He’d killed Cersei, their babe as well.

_It wasn’t Brienne’s fault._

He opened Addam’s fire lighting kit with a shaking hand, windering how in the name of all the gods he was going to work a flint and tinder with only one hand. Indeed, it was all but impossible – he tried to prop it and balance it but he couldn’t strike it hard enough to get a spark.

Jaime cursed to himself, ready to give up and throw the whole lot across the room when he heard a soft yawn from behind him. He turned to see Sapphire sitting up in bed beside her mother, who was still asleep. She rubbed her little blue eyes with her fists and her golden curls were mussed and fuzzy where she’d been sleeping.

“Well, good morning, Lady Sapphire,” Jaime said to his daughter. “That was not a long nap.”

Her round little apple face broke into the most beautiful smile, showing the four pearl-white teeth she had in her top and bottom gums. She crawled towards him, utterly heedless of the edge of the bed. Jaime lunged for her and caught her before she fell, sweeping her into his arms and against his chest.

She squealed in delight and of course, her hands went where they always did, straight into his beard to pull. She squealed again.

“Hush, your mother is sleeping,” he told his babe. “Aspiring Kingslayers need their rest.”

Jaime lifted her to smell her napkin, but fortunately, there were no signs of anything unpleasant within.

So he grabbed his stick and hauled both of them up, careful to keep his feet. He wrapped a blanket around her to keep her warm and took her outside, where the snow was falling thick and fast now. Perhaps he could carry some things into the hut from the carriage; perhaps he could think of a way to light the fire.

Sapphire squealed in delight, whipping her head this way and that and holding her hands out to feel the snowflakes land on her fingers. Blinking and laughing when they landed on her eyelashes.

Jaime laughed with her, at the confusion on her face when the snowflakes she caught melted to water on her little palms. How her rapid blinking reminded him of Brienne when she was flustered.

_Brienne_ …

Snow frosted their daughter’s little curls now and she wrinkled her nose as a snowflake landed on it. Sneezed the most adorable little sneeze that Jaime had ever seen. Around them, the world turned to a wonder of white and wind and whispering branches and in the middle of it all, the only thing that mattered, there was Sapphire, her wide blue eyes and her pretty smile.

“I love you,” Jaime told her, even though he knew she didn’t understand.

He had _her_ from all of this. Somewhere in the middle of all this death and pain and misery he had made with his stupidity – he had also made _her_.

_Made her with stupidity, too_ , said Cersei’s voice. Because he was lost and drowning and because he hadn’t pulled out.

Behind him, he felt the eyes of Sunchaser on his back, staring accusatorially at him.

“All right!” he told the horse over his shoulder. “I know it’s cold, I’ll get your blanket.”

But it wasn’t Sunchaser who stared at him.

Jaime turned to see a man holding a bow. Drawn and pointed right at his head.

“You’re not Jorvan,” the man said. “That’s Jorvan’s hut.”

Jaime froze. Held Sapphire tight against him. “I’m his cousin,” he lied. “He said I could use it.”

But the man shook his head. “Jorvan doesn’t have any family. He told me that himself.”

“I’m a distant cousin.”

“Distant cousins need to break in, do they?” The man nodded at the splintered lock on the hut door. “I would have thought he might have given you a key.”

Jaime sighed. Closed his eyes. “Perhaps I lost it.”

“More like you’ve broken in. Come to steal his things, have you?”

“I’m no thief. Just a man looking for shelter in a snowstorm. A place to get warm.”

The man looked Jaime up and down – Jaime was grateful he looked like pigshit right now; even in Addam’s finery, he was muddy and bedraggled. Not like a man worth robbing.

The other man was dressed like a peasant, too. Simple linen clothes, worn boots. A threadbare cloak. He was younger than Jaime – late thirties at most, though it was often difficult to tell with Smallfolk. He had a thick head of black curls, streaked with grey, and a Westerlander’s green eyes.

“That your son? Daughter?”

“Daughter.”

“How old?”

“Six moons?” Jaime guessed. He realised he didn’t rightly know when Brienne had birthed her.

“What are you doing in these woods with a babe so small in the dead of winter?”

“There – there was a fire,” Jaime forced his brain to think quickly. It had become easier, since he had stopped the regular poppymilk. “We escaped but … my wife had to jump from a window with our babe. She – she’s hurt and she needs a bed. A few more days out there and I think she might have died.”

“I did see smoke,” said the man. He chewed his lip. “Lots of it, over to the south. A few days past.”

“That’ll be it,” Jaime told him. “That’s where we came from.”

“Your wife – is she inside?”

Jaime nodded.

“Show me.”

Jaime hobbled tentatively past the man, careful to keep Sapphire shielded from that bow with his body. He pushed the door open and led the man inside.

Brienne was awake – she dove for her sword at the sight of the stranger. She yelped in pain but got her hand on the hilt.

“Brienne!” Jaime shouted. Hoping that the man hadn’t seen Valyrian steel before. Hoping he didn’t know what that sword was worth.

“Who is this?” she held Oathkeeper in front of her, pointed towards the man. Exactly how she thought she was going to fight him from a bed across the room when he was armed with a bow remained a mystery – but it was all-too obvious she was hurt. Even holding her head up was excruciating for her.

“He’s a friend of Jorvan,” Jaime told her. “Jorvan owns this hut.”

Brienne didn’t move.

“What did you do?” the man asked Brienne, paying no heed to the sword. “Broke your leg?”

“Pelvis,” she panted. Her eyes were everywhere, mostly on Sapphire, who was watching proceedings from Jaime’s arms in silence.

The man gave an exaggerated wince. “You’ll need more than a few days’ rest.” He lowered his bow.

Jaime let himself breathe. “Where is Jorvan?”

The man shrugged. “He went south to defend the capital, as part of the Lannister army. He’s not come home yet.”

“Oh.”

There was a silence that hung over them for a moment, and then Brienne said. “Do you think Jorvan would mind if I used his hut to recover? For just a few weeks? We would repair the door. Repay him for his trouble.”

The man’s eyes went from Jaime to Brienne. From Brienne to Sapphire. “I don’t suppose he’s coming back now,” he said. “But he’s a kind man, Jorvan. Always shared his kill with me if I hadn’t made none. He was generous to me, and my family.”

“And you think he would be to ours?” Jaime asked.

He nodded. “Yes … yes, I think he would be to yours, as well. If he were here.”

“Thank you,” said Brienne.

“And it might be good for the rest of us to have more neighbours for a while. It would help us out. That’s what we do here, in winter. We help each other out.”

“There are other huts like this one?” Brienne asked.

“Another five, close by. A little neighbourhood, we like to call ourselves. We hunt and fish the rivers, and we take our kill to market at the end of the week, make ourselves a bit of coin.”

“You work together?”

“As neighbours we do.” He stuck out a hand, dirty and well-calloused, for Jaime to shake. “I’m Weslar.”

Jaime took Weslar’s right hand awkwardly in his left, looking more like he was holding hands with him than shaking. “Jaime,” he replied without thinking.

Weslar nodded without comment and bent to shake Brienne’s hand, too. Fortunately, the advent of the Lannister twins’ birth had caused a wave of Jaimes and Cerseis throughout the Westerlands. It was far from an uncommon name among men his age.

“You need some food, friends? My wife made a kettle of soup this afternoon and might be I can find you a little bread, too. You look quite hungry if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Soup?” Jaime blinked. A moment ago the man had a crossbow pointed at them.

Weslar nodded. “We’re neighbours now, are we not?”

“Thank you,” said Brienne. “We need food, tis true. And if there is any way we can help you in return –”

Weslar looked from Brienne to Jaime, both of their injuries. Probably their neighbour would be better served killing them both than feeding them. He scratched his stubbly chin.

“Well, might be your horse would come in handy on market day,” he said. “That’s a fine beast.”

“Sunchaser?” Jaime laughed.

“Of course,” said Brienne with a glare at Jaime. “He is a fine horse. He’s saved our lives.”

Weslar nodded. He caught sight of the fireplace, of Jaime’s aborted attempt to get a fire going in the grate. Without a word, he knelt down and picked up the flint and tinder. Struck it a few times and blew on the kindling gently. Before long, fire had caught the scrunched parchment of Addam’s mother’s letter and was licking at the handful of dry sticks that Jaime had collected.

“Thank you,” Jaime said in wonder. People with two hands didn’t know how lucky they were.

“I’ll fetch you that soup,” Weslar said. “And might be I have something to put around that fire. Don’t want the babe to burn herself, do we?”

Jaime shook his head. “Thank you,” he said again.

Weslar backed out of the door.

“A kind-hearted man,” Brienne said from the bed.

“Possibly a horse-thief.”

She gave him a withering look. “He could have shot both of us and taken Sunchaser if he’d been of a mind to.”

“He still might.”

“After he’s lit our fire and fed us his wife’s soup?”

She had a point.

“You’re the one who wanted to come here, Jaime. Please don’t – don’t _Lannister_ away this man’s kindness.”

He was silent for a moment, seeing the weariness in her face. The pain and the exhaustion. “I won’t,” he sighed.

He passed Sapphire to Brienne. “I’d better go and get Addam’s nag’s blanket on him,” he said. “If he’s going to be working to feed us.”

Brienne nodded, and Jaime went back out into the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks as always to all of you for reading, kudosing and commenting. Always great to hear your thoughts throughout this journey. Had a little bit of nastiness over this story this week, mostly from people who haven't actually read it and are assuming things from the tags alone, which is disappointing. There has always been an unpleasant element of pearl-clutching and positivity-policing in the JB fandom that attempts to discourage anything other than pure fluff from being written and I'm really sad to see it's continued even after the show has finished. 
> 
> I actually think this story is very positive - essentially it's a story about rebuilding lives in the wake of nothing working out the way we thought it would. If that isn't a metaphor for the fandom after 8.04 then I'm not doing a good enough job!
> 
> Huge thanks to my lovely CaptainTarthister who remains an eternal force for encouragement and enthusiasm. Even with all the madness in the world at the moment, she's been the bestest bestie that anyone could ever want and need. 
> 
> If you are interested in getting sneaky peaks at the upcoming chapters as well as chatting with me about anything at all, I would absolutely LOVE that! Come and say hi on Twitter ([@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister). I promise I am very nice, despite the fact I write angst.


	4. Orchid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne get to know the neighbours.

Jaime woke to sunshine, opening his eyes expecting Cersei to be there above him. Expecting her fingers in his hair, her lips on his.

Instead, he woke to Sapphire, her foot in his eye. The sound of Brienne snoring and whimpering with pain in her sleep. He gingerly removed Sapphire’s foot so as not to wake her and sat up.

He felt like death. His muscles ached despite the sweet feeling of finally sleeping in a bed, his head was thick, and his mouth felt like it had grown fur.

Jaime stuck his feet in his boots and grabbed his stick. Outside the hut, the sun was bright on the snow; it was almost blinding. He limped into the treeline and leant against a thick oak to free his cock from his breeches. His piss steamed in the cold morning air.

Sunchaser sauntered up to him, somehow free from his hobble. He nudged him with his nose, knocking his cock from his hand to piss on his feet. Jaime started to wonder if Addam’s ghost had possessed his horse – he could almost hear his bannerman’s laughter as he shook the piss off his boots.

Sunchaser snorted.

“Hungry?” he asked. “That expensive feed won’t last forever, you know. Then you’ll have to make do with the grass like every other nag.”

Sunchaser answered him with another nudge, shoving him in the direction of the feedbag.

Jaime tucked his cock back into his breeches and held up his hand and stump in mock surrender. “I can’t even take a piss without someone wanting something, can I?”

He went to the rear of the carriage and scrambled up to grab at the sack atop it. Missed spectacularly and fell on his arse. Again.

“Hello, there!” shouted a voice from the woods. Jaime pulled himself up with his stick, frowning.

It was Weslar, coming through the trees with a big dish in his hands.

“Morning,” Jaime said, barely managing to force a smile onto his face. He should have known that Weslar would be one of _those_ neighbours.

“Thought you might be sleeping late after all you’ve been through.”

Jaime looked at the sky, trying to determine if he had indeed slept late. It was so bright he hadn’t checked the position of the sun.

“Kiren made you some porridge.” Weslar proudly proffered the pot he was holding.

“Kiren?”

“Oh – my apologies. Kiren is my wife! She wanted to come and greet you herself, but she’s sorting the boys out with their breakfast.”

“Ah.” Jaime took a lunge for the horse feed again and missed.

“We have two boys – Tobas is five years old and little Dravor – he’s three.”

“That’s nice.” Jaime finally managed to grasp the feed.

“We had a third, but he was just a babe. Fever took him just as winter began. Younger than your little one, he was.”

Jaime yanked on the sack; he pulled it on top of himself, overbalanced and fell.

“What am I doing?” Weslar exclaimed. He put the pot down on the fence post. “I should be helping you.”

“There’s no need.”

“Of course there is – got to keep that fine horse fed well.”

“I can manage. Truly.”

But of course, Jaime’s traitorous feet chose that moment to trip over each other, and he dropped the sack, fell over on it and whacked himself in the eye with his stick.

Weslar hauled him to his feet and clapped his back with a broad palm. Picked up the sack as if it weighed next to nothing and used it to fill Sunchaser’s feedbag. The horse tucked in eagerly, snorting happily at Weslar and nuzzling against his shoulder.

Jaime glared at the horse – of _course_ Sunchaser liked Weslar.

Behind them, in the hut, Sapphire squealed.

“Sounds like your babe is awake,” said Weslar with a grin. “Let’s see how she likes Kiren’s porridge. She’s topped it off with some crab apple jam.”

That did actually sound relatively edible, Jaime thought. Far better than the brown swill the smallfolk ate in King’s Landing, anyway. He led Weslar and his pot into the hut, where both Brienne and Sapphire were awake beneath the furs.

“Good morning, milady!” cried Weslar.

Jaime noticed Brienne take a breath to correct him that _actually_ , she was a Ser, but then saw their neighbour was talking affectionately to Sapphire. The babe gave him one of her pretty, wide grins – Jaime shook his head. Traitors surrounded him!

Brienne looked exhausted still, and grey with pain, but she gratefully accepted the bowl of porridge Weslar passed her and spooned the contents into her mouth hungrily. Sapphire watched her and tried to grab the spoon every time it moved.

Jaime sat down beside her on the bed, and she crawled over at once to sit on his lap. Weslar offered him a bowl, and Sapphire grabbed the edge, peering into it with big, hungry eyes. She had eaten nought but Brienne’s milk for days – she’d missed her solid food.

The porridge was thick and creamy, and the jam pleasantly sweet. Sapphire smacked her lips and hungrily opened her mouth for more.

Weslar watched them all eat with a slight smile on his face, spooning a second helping for Brienne as soon as she had finished.

“Thank you,” she sighed. “This is so kind.”

Weslar waved her thanks off with his big hand.

“Is there any way we can repay your kindness?” she asked.

Jaime made a face at her – was it truly wise to get too involved with these people? They knew nothing of them, save for the fact that they were smallfolk. While Jaime did not share his sister’s opinion of the lowborn, it was true that they tended to have lived lives where cunning and ruthlessness had kept them fed. Kindness could be dangerous.

Weslar scratched his chin. “Well, there is one thing …”

Jaime resisted the urge to stare pointedly at Brienne.

“There’s a stash of firewood out by the pond, a little further out than Giddon’s place. After the last storm there was so much I couldn’t push it all on my cart, so I’ve been bringing it back a little at a time. But if I had use of your horse …”

There it was. Jaime hadn’t liked the way their new neighbour kept his eyes on Sunchaser last night, how he kept mentioning how fine an animal he was.

“Well, then I could bring it all back,” Weslar continued. “I’d be happy to share the wood with you, of course.” He eyed Jaime’s missing hand. “I don’t suppose using an axe is too easy for you.”

“Of course,” said Brienne immediately. “Anything. Truly.”

“I’ll accompany you,” Jaime said. “Sunchaser can be a bit skittish, but he’s used to me.”

It was a complete lie, of course. Sunchaser was the most unflappable horse Jaime had ever known, but he was damned if he would just wave this near-stranger off with their most valuable asset.

“I’d be glad of your company.” Weslar clapped Jaime on the back again.

“As soon as Sapphire is asleep I’ll –”

“Oh don’t worry about that, I can have Kiren come over and sit with your ladies, make sure the babe doesn’t get up to any mischief. She’d love to meet you all.”

Now Brienne looked a little panic-struck. He noticed her hand twitch in the direction of Oathkeeper; she had stashed her sword between her side of the bed and the wall.

“Thank you,” she said, though her smile was strained.

“We should be careful,” Jaime told her as soon as Weslar left.

She swallowed and nodded. “We don’t have a choice.”

Sapphire crawled back across the bed to her, looking for a top-up to her porridge.

“We could –”

“We could what? Die alone in the forest? That’s what we were doing.” She opened her tunic, and Sapphire adopted the position she had become used to feeding in – half sprawled across her mother’s ribs, face down on her breast.

“We weren’t dying … I _saved_ you.”

“You pulled me out of the privy, got us out of there, but …”

“We’re out. They won’t find us. Bran can’t –”

“I’m not talking about Bran. What would we have eaten today if Weslar hadn’t fed us, Jaime? How would we have kept Sapphire away from the fire? How would we even have lit that fire?”

“I would have managed.”

“You can barely walk.”

“Then I would have crawled!” He slammed his bowl down on the floor. “You don’t think I have what it takes to protect my child? You think I would see her starve?”

Brienne sighed. “That’s not what I mean.”

“Yes, it is. I’m a Lannister – a knight. I’ve commanded armies, I’ve faced the dead! I might not be the fighter I used to be, but I can provide food and firewood for a babe.”

She fell silent. Closed her eyes.

“You wish he were here, don’t you? Addam. You wish he was the one washing you and dressing you and helping you take a shit.”

Her eyes flew open. She opened her mouth to say something but then lifted a hand and took a deep breath as if she thought better of it.

“What? You might as well speak of it.”

“No. I made myself a vow. I’ll not speak about Addam with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s nought to do with you. You’re not my husband nor my father nor my keeper. Taking my maidenhead entitles you to nothing – you have barely been a friend.”

“Is that what he is to you? You think Addam is your friend?”

She scoffed.

“ _I_ pulled you out of the privy pit. _I_ jumped into a bear pit. _I_ gave you Oathkeeper and knighted you! Where was he then?”

She looked at him with wide eyes, looking like she thought he’d lost his wits. When she spoke, her voice was small. “Do you think those things mean anything to me any more?”

“I –”

She cut him off. “No. I’ll tell you. I lived with those things for years. Thinking about them, analysing them, replaying every gesture, every facial expression. Every look you gave me. Those thoughts kept me warm at night even in somewhere as cold and forbidding as Castle Black … I allowed myself to think they meant you _loved_ me.”

“I did love you!” he protested. “I lay with you, didn’t I? Stayed with you in Winterfell, let all around us see that we were together. How could you think I didn’t love you? I gave you everything I could, Brienne …”

“You only gave me what you could get away with – that’s not what you do with someone you love. That’s what you do with your whore.”

“That’s not what it was like.”

“You think I should be grateful, don’t you? You truly do. That I should be thankful you spared me a moon from your single-minded obsession with your evil sister.”

“Cersei was all but my wife!” he shouted. “I know we didn’t have the most conventional of relationships, but … she … we had loved each other since childhood. Did you truly expect I had just … abandoned her?!”

“Yes, I did! I did when she lied to you; I did when she sent a man to kill you! I did when you took my maidenhead and shared my chambers and spent inside me all those times. I thought that was exactly what you had done.”

Jaime was silent. Her words hurt his head, along his scar, in his eyes. Things made so much more sense when he didn’t hear them out loud.

“Tell me something,” Brienne said, her voice wavering. “Did you _always_ intend to go back to her?”

Jaime closed his eyes. He took a breath. “ _Intend_ is not the right word.”

“Then … what is?”

He rubbed his forehead in his palm – his head felt like it was splitting. “Intent is … choosing.”

“But you chose to leave her, didn’t you? In King’s Landing when she lied to you. When she didn’t send her army North.”

“I didn’t – that wasn’t … “

“What?”

“I saw _you_.”

Brienne opened her mouth. Closed it again. “Me?”

“At the Dragonpit. You looked so fucking lovely! Older. Regal and proud and wearing my sword and your fur-lined cape and … you looked like you cared.”

“I … _cared_?”

“When you looked at me.” He wanted to hide now, under the bed. Under the floor. Be dead in the earth.

That look … the one that Cersei had caught … it had been something profound and beautiful, something that had reached everything inside him that had still wanted to live.

It had been that look that had made him leave. That look that he ran towards when all the world grew dark and cold and winter came. That look had started all of this.

His brain felt like it might burst out of his skull. Part of him wished it would.

“Do you remember that night they served venison pie in the Great Hall at Winterfell?” he asked her. Still not looking at her.

She didn’t answer.

“Afterwards, we lay on the furs by the fire and … got _lost_ in each other.”

He couldn’t think of a romantic way to put it, but in truth, they had spent quite some time that evening top-and-tailed, their mouths between one another’s legs. He remembered it well, all the glorious soft sweet wet meat of her cunt in his mouth, his cheeks squashed between her thighs, his nose in her arse and his back burning in the heat of the fire. He’d clenched his hand on her arse every time her huge mouth brought him too close to the edge. She would lift that long tongue away and just breathe hot breath on his throbbing shaft until he squeezed her arse again to say he was back in control and she’d taken him back between her lips and … _gods_.

“I remember,” she said. Jaime lifted his head. He thought she’d look away, maybe blush, but her eyes were on his, firm.

“We had the window open. The shutters.” He liked the feeling of the icy air on his hot flesh as they fucked.

She nodded again. “Sansa was arguing with her brother in the courtyard.”

“It was all still going on—the game. We were there, having our happy ending, pleasuring each other like we were the only two people in the world, but … nothing had changed. It was all still dragons and Dothraki and dragon queens. It hadn’t all gone away because we were fucking – we were just hiding from it.”

“Jaime –”

There was a bang on the door. Jaime snarled under his breath, but he groped for his stick and limped to pull it open. It was, of course, Weslar, smiling his broad smile and carrying a bundle under his arm.

Behind him were his family, two scruffily-dressed little boys who shared Weslar’s mop of black curls and a skinny, sallow-skinned woman who looked no older than twenty.

“This is your _wife_?” Jaime asked, unable to keep the shock from his voice. She must have been a child when they married!

The woman offered him a smile full of brown teeth and tucked her lank blonde hair behind one ear. She wasn’t unattractive – she had a Westerlander’s colouring, not unlike Cersei’s, but of course she lacked the breeding, the training and the hygiene to be truly reminiscent of his twin.

“I’m Kiren,” she said in a sweet melodious voice that _also_ reminded him of Cersei’s. For a moment Jaime was struck quite dumb.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Brienne said from the bed. Sapphire lifted her head and smiled too before going back to her milk. “And your boys, too.”

Brienne looked thoroughly miserable – Jaime hoped their guests hadn’t heard the two of them yelling on the approach.

“We brought you some things,” Kiren said, taking the bundle that her husband carried. “Some clothes for your babe. They belonged to our little one who – who … well, he died at the beginning of winter. I hope you don’t think that inauspicious.”

Brienne gasped. “Of course not! I – I’m so sorry. Are you sure you wish to part with them, Kiren?”

The peasant woman nodded, though her eyes were bright with tears. “It will do me some good to see them on another babe, I think.”

“Thank you,” said Brienne. “Truly. From the bottom of my heart.”

“Come on, then, Jaime!” boomed Weslar. “Let’s leave the girls and the babes to get acquainted.”

Jaime laughed. He didn’t think he’d ever heard anyone refer to Brienne as a girl before; it was going to be quite amusing when she got back on her feet and they saw the size of her.

He followed Weslar out of the hut. They went to Sunchaser, who had finished his feed and was now nosing about in the snow, looking for grass. Weslar had brought a rickety cart with him, and Jaime held the horse’s nose while Weslar hitched it to him.

“It’s quite far,” their neighbour said, eyeing Jaime’s walking stick. “You can ride if you want.”

“Don’t know if I can,” he said. “I haven’t ridden since – since this happened.”

“Well, let’s try it. You have a saddle?”

Jaime nodded – Addam had stashed his saddle in the carriage; he limped to get it, Weslar right behind him. He followed Jaime into the carriage itself, and he was suddenly conscious of the man looking around him, taking in the plush furnishings, the embroidered curtains, the finery of Addam’s torn clothes. Brienne’s armour piled in a corner.

Weslar caught Jaime noticing. Held up his hands. “It’s not my business,” he said. “Just – no one’s going to come looking for all that, are they? The horse, neither?”

It took Jaime a moment to understand; Weslar thought they had stolen it.

“No,” he said. “They’re all dead.”

The other man nodded. “Just as well, I suppose.”

He helped Jaime lift the heavy saddle down from the shelf, taking it from him to go and fit it to Sunchaser’s back.

Jaime realised that he should have been much more careful about the contents of the carriage – nothing in here looked like it belonged to peasants. Even Addam’s saddle was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, embossed with his house sigil, a tree with a sunburst of flames instead of leaves.

Weslar strapped the saddle onto Sunchaser, unhitching his little cart for a moment to do so. He held out his hands to give Jaime a boost into the seat, but after several attempts that either ended with Jaime on his arse in the snow or on top of Weslar in the snow, they had to conclude it wouldn’t work.

Instead, Weslar clambered up into the seat himself and dragged Jaime bodily up and onto Sunchaser’s back. He made sure Jaime was seated properly before slithering back down.

Jaime had thought it would feel good to be back in the saddle, liberating somehow from the prison of his ruined body. In truth, it felt as awkward as walking, as unsteady. The twist of his broken legs meant his feet weren’t flat in the stirrups and his knees couldn’t grip that well, either. He clung to the reins for dear life, but of course he only had one hand to do _that_ with as well.

He hadn’t broached the subject of his fits, either, but he realised that he hadn’t had any for a full day and a night. He decided to risk it – he wasn’t keen on telling Weslar just yet – what would stop the man from bashing him over the head and claiming he’d had a fit and fallen?

Perhaps Maester Smallwood had been right about the poppymilk exacerbating his problems after all. That was another apology he owed the poor man.

Weslar reattached his little cart and took hold of Sunchaser’s bridle to guide him in the right direction. Jaime wobbled wildly but managed to stay upright by grabbing Sunchaser by the mane. The horse snorted in protest.

They took a very circuitous route to this stash of logs, calling in at each of their “neighbours” in turn to introduce Jaime.

Auster occupied the hut over from Weslar and Kiren’s – he lived there with his brother Culler, a lackwit of around thirty. Weslar introduced Jaime as Jorvan’s cousin, and both Auster and Culler had soon plied him with a cup of damson tea and swapped his stick for a proper cane that had belonged to their late father.

The next hut was owned by a fearsome, portly woman called Mertha and her twin daughters whose names Jaime didn’t catch. All three of them were apparently deadly with a bow, and it was Mertha who had made the crab apple jam that they had enjoyed on their porridge that morning. Jaime had been given two more jars by the time he and Weslar moved on.

By the time they finally arrived at Giddon’s hut, the sun was at its zenith, and they caught the old man sitting at his table in the winter sunshine about to eat his midday meal.

“Well met, Giddon,” boomed Weslar as they approached the hut.

Giddon got to his feet to shake hands with Weslar. Looked up at Sunchaser, looked up at Jaime. Peered at him quite intently.

“This is Jorvan’s cousin,” said Weslar. “Just moved into his hut for a while, so I’m out showing him the sights. Come to fetch that stash of firewood, as well.”

Giddon’s eyes did not leave Jaime’s face.

Jaime stuck out his hand. “I’m Jaime,” he said.

Giddon nodded, almost in agreement. “Yes, you are,” he said, somewhat cryptically. He did not take Jaime’s hand. He turned his back on the pair of them and sat back down to his lunch.

“We won’t bother you any more, Giddon,” promised Weslar, and led Sunchaser on into the forest behind the old man’s hut.

“He’s less than friendly,” Jaime observed.

“Oh, he likes to be alone most of the time. He comes out all the same if we have a get-together, though. Don’t mind him.”

“I won’t,” said Jaime, but when he glanced back at the old man’s hut, he saw that he was on his feet, peering after them as they rode away. Probably another potential horse-thief, Jaime thought. But he didn’t much care for how the man looked at _him_ , either.

It took only a few moments more for them to reach Weslar’s log stash, but a good hour for them to load it all onto the cart. Jaime helped as best he could, supported much better by the cane that Auster and Cullen had given him than he had been by the stick he’d been using. But he could still only carry a single log at a time.

Weslar didn’t seem to mind though – in fact, the man seemed almost permanently amiable. He chatted away about his family, about his hut, about hunting seasons he’d seen come and go. Jaime could all but feel his brain melting as he talked.

Once the logs were all loaded, Weslar clambered back onto the horse and pulled Jaime back into the saddle once more. Unfortunately, his legs had all but seized up after the ride there and he kept slipping from side to side in the seat, groaning in pain. He as forced to lean forward and hug Sunchaser around the neck to stay on his back.

After they had been going for several minutes, Jaime almost shitting himself every few steps as he slid this way and that, Weslar looked up at him with thoughtful eyes.

“Do you mind if I ask you what happened to you?”

“I told you,” Jaime said irritably. “It was a fire.”

“No. Not that. What happened to _you_?” His green eyes went to Jaime’s missing hand. The scar on his head. His broken legs.

“Oh. I was crushed by rubble.” He was surprised how easily it came out of his mouth. “I was in King’s Landing when the Mad Queen …”

He trailed off. Weslar nodded, sympathy all over his face.

“Heard about that,” the big man said. “Horrible thing. An affront to gods and men.”

“That it was.”

“Worse than her father, that one. He was a hard man to be sure, and I’m sure he could be cruel, but he kept things in line.”

“He did?” It was a curious view the smallfolk had about Aerys – Jaime had no idea.

Weslar nodded. “No one wanted to end up in his dungeon, that’s for certain. And we were prosperous under him – he managed the Westerlands well.”

Jaime screwed up his brow. He didn’t recall Aerys having anything to do with the management of the Westerlands during his reign. That had been down to Tywin Lannister.

“His daughter though – she was a different kettle of fish,” Weslar continued. He shook his head. “She’d not been near here of course, not since she was little more than a girl. But we’d heard stories about the type of queen she was.”

This made less and less sense. Jaime’s head started to pound again.

“She had no interest in us, that’s for sure—her own kingdom. But really, that was probably for the best. After what she did that day, blowing up the Sept and all those poor souls like you –”

“The Sept?!” But – it had been _Cersei_ who … “No! Not the Sept!” Jaime cried. “Not _Cersei_. The Mad Queen! Daenerys Targaryen. When she -- ”

But Weslar just shook his head. “Dragons will do what dragons will do. You don’t poke at a beast like that and expect not to get burned. That was the fault of Cersei Lannister too – too mad with power to know when to let go.”

Jaime reeled.

“She got that whole city burned for her pride and her greed.”

Jaime thought he was going to be sick. People … smallfolk … Westerlanders even … they thought Cersei was the Mad Queen? Cersei?

He understood that ire from OIenna. From the Starks, of course.

But … _worse than Daenerys_?

Dragons will do what dragons will do …

Jaime thought his head would explode. His brain was full of wildfire, full of screams. Full of the smell of burning flesh. For a moment he was back in the throne room, seventeen years old, watching Rickard Stark cook in his armour. Trying to go away inside.

Trying to be with Cersei.

For a moment he was back on his horse, riding back to the capital after Riverrun, seeing that terrible endless plume of green smoke rising from the ruins of the Sept. Wanting this not to have happened.

Just wanting to be with Cersei.

For a moment he was sinking sinking, arms above him, an orange flare of dragonfire, silent and beautiful above him. Bronn’s strong arms about his waist. Needing not to drown.

Needing to get back to warn Cersei.

Burying everything but Cersei. Dead people – dead children. Child after child sacrificed to Cersei’s pride. Never mind. Never mind.

_You’re hurt._

Doesn’t matter.

_You’re bleeding._

Doesn’t matter.

_Don’t let me die._

Nothing matters, nothing. _Only us. Only us. Only Cersei Cersei Cersei._

For a moment, he was in the basement, warm and dead. Wrapped around Cersei, head in her breasts.

Nothing matters, only brick after brick after brick.

“You all right?” asked Weslar. “You look a bit peaky – you swaying too much up there?”

Jaime was gasping. Sweating. Shuddering in the saddle.

He managed a nod. Managed to swallow, then fake a smile.

“I just … don’t like thinking about what happened.”

“That’s understandable.” Weslar sucked a breath between his teeth. “My apologies, friend.”

Jaime shook his head. Sat up in the saddle again, looking over to where the hut he shared with Brienne appeared through the trees. “There’s no need. Probably past time I confronted it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for your continued joy for this story. I'm so sorry I didn't get a chance to reply to comments in the last chapter - it's been a weird week in the world and a lot has been happening here. Please do continue to comment, I really do love chatting and getting to know all your thoughts, theories and analyses. Hopefully, things will calm down a bit and I'll get a chance to respond.
> 
> Big thanks to my lovely CaptainTarthister for cheering me on and always being a listening ear. Don't know what I did to deserve a friend so lovely, but I'm incredibly grateful she's in my life.
> 
> If you're interested in updates and teasers for this story, please do consider following me on my Twitter [@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister)


	5. Violet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five weeks later ...

The forest was alive.

The sun had some warmth in it this evening, and it seemed as though everything had come out to greet it. Birds sang their last songs in the trees, insects buzzed around and the bushes rustled with all manner of creatures waking up.

Jaime and Weslar were on their bellies in the undergrowth, a few hundred yards from the huts, where they were carefully laying the snares that Brienne had tied from her bed. She was good at it, and fast too; she made far more in a day than even Weslar could – he was impressed by her skill. With Weslar to help Jaime fix them out in the woods, they’d had quite a bit of success, particularly with rabbits and small game. Not only were they contributing to the food stores, but they’d had a brace of rabbits for Weslar to take to market last week, too.

It had been five weeks since they had found the hut, and things had improved a little. Brienne could sit for short periods, which made eating and drinking and taking her to shit and make her water a lot easier. Sapphire crawled at quite some pace now and could pull herself up to her feet. She had also started to make the most adorable babbling noises, greeting Jaime with a stream of nonsense chatter whenever he came in from hunting or fetching wood or helping Weslar with Sunchaser.

It had also been a fortnight since Jaime had last had a fit. Almost a moon since he had succumbed to the lure of Maester Smallwood’s little bottle of poppymilk. He was eating more than drinking, and some of his strength had returned. He fell a lot less, too – his feet felt more like his own.

“Can you find another stick?” Weslar asked him with a grunt, holding up his end of the snare. “This one is rotted right through.”

Jaime pulled himself up on the cane their neighbours Auster and Culler had given him. His legs had gone stiff lying so still on the snowy ground, and it took a few steps before he could feel them again.

He hunted around on the ground for a suitable replacement – a stick that might be strong enough to hold a rabbit even when it struggled. He spotted one among the roots of a nearby tree and picked it up with his gloved left hand, careful to shove the snow back, so the area didn’t look disturbed. He passed the new stick to Weslar, who was also wearing gloves. If they touched the snare with their bare hands, no animal would come near.

“The sun’s going down,” Jaime told his neighbour.

“We’ll make this the last one. Best not be late for Kiren’s stew.”

Jaime nodded – he had to admit the scrawny peasant woman did cook well from the meagre ingredients they had at their disposal, far better than he’d ever imagined peasants ate. They looked after one another better, too.

Every night, as evening fell, the whole community came together, shared a meal and divided the bounty from their hunting and foraging. If someone had been unsuccessful or had fallen too ill, the others covered the shortfall.

Under normal circumstances, the neighbours would take it in turns to host, but with Brienne injured, it had become the norm for everyone to gather at their hut, so as not to leave her out. Jaime thought that he probably wouldn’t have minded being left out if he were her, but she went along with it gamely enough.

“I think my famous dandelion ale should be about ready by tonight,” Weslar said with a gleam in his eye as he dug a little hole in the dirt with his finger for the stick. It was not the first time he’d mentioned it – the beverage was clearly a point of pride for the man. “You have to try it, Jaime. It’ll put hairs on your chest!”

Jaime grimaced at the thought – the last thing he wanted was to end up as disgustingly hairy as Addam.

“I hope Kiren remembered to put the jug out in the snow – it’s so much better cold.” Weslar was almost rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

“Let’s hope,” said Jaime, not caring about anything but getting back and getting his belly filled.

“She’s a good woman, but she can be forgetful,” Weslar said.

“Where _did_ you meet her?” Jaime asked Weslar as he carefully placed dirt and leaves around the snare to hide it. He had tried to imagine it often, where Weslar could possibly have come into contact with his child bride.

“Kiren?” Weslar asked without lifting his head. “At the market! Her father had a fish stall; she used to help out there most weeks.”

“She must have been …”

“Oh, she _was_. The sweetest and kindest person I’ve ever met, in fact.”

Jaime opened his mouth to tell Weslar that was not what he had meant, that he was asking how old Kiren was, but their neighbour carried on reminiscing.

“I had a wife before her,” he confided. “Emely, her name was, we’d known each other since childhood. Never blessed with children, sadly, but … such is the way of things.”

“You left her to wed Kiren?”

Weslar looked up at him as if he’d gone quite mad. “No. The Stranger took my Emely. Nine years ago now. Fever again – fever doesn’t seem much to care for me.”

Jaime didn’t know what to say. Did Weslar need comfort, cheering up? Was he expected to sympathise? Was a subject change in order? Things like this had never mattered when he was a Lannister lord. Whatever he said and did was the right thing, just because he was a lord.

“My wife died too,” Jaime blurted suddenly. He hadn’t intended to do it, certainly not to Weslar – it was none of the man’s business after all. “My wife before Brienne, I mean.”

Weslar’s brow dropped sorrowfully. “I am sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you,” Jaime said, astonished to find that he was genuinely grateful. No one had been sorry when Cersei had died, no one. The grief had been his alone.

“Any children?” Weslar asked.

Jaime nodded. “Three. All dead. And – and she was pregnant, too.”

“Gods be good, Jaime. Well – well, that explains a _lot_.”

A lot of what? Jaime didn’t have the chance to ask before Weslar spoke again.

“Did they die together?”

_No_ , Jaime almost said. _It was a regicide, a murder and a suicide. And my ‘wife’ I killed myself, with stupidity._ But he found himself nodding; the lie was much more manageable.

Weslar got to his feet and put a big hand on Jaime’s shoulder. Squeezed it.

“Thank the Gods you found Brienne. As I found Kiren.”

Brienne? The thought made Jaime’s head hurt. It was not so simple as all that, either.

The pair of them walked home in morose silence – suddenly even the chattering noise of the forest seemed oppressive and small.

Out the front of Jaime’s hut, all was busy. Auster and Culler were hefting the table between them – Mertha’s twins were bringing chairs. Giddon stirred the cooking pot and fed the fire while Kiren and Mertha got the bowls. Weslar’s two small sons played in the snow – they had made what passed for a snowman, though it barely reached Jaime’s ankle, and also thrown a few snowballs at Sunchaser – the horse’s blanket was covered with splotches of snow.

Both boys ran to their father as soon as they emerged from the treeline, and Weslar swept them up in a hug that made Jaime envious. He’d never so much as ruffled his own sons’ hair. Nor had he ever been touched with affection by his own father – no wonder he and Cersei had snuck off into dark corners to hold each other. No wonder Cersei had clung to her children like a woman drowning.

Weslar must have seen him looking – he offered Jaime a sad smile.

“Stew’s ready,” called Kiren.

Everyone piled around the table, Mertha putting down plates of bread and passing out the bowls.

Weslar and Auster went inside the hut to fetch Brienne to the table – they’d padded out a chair with pillows for her, and she could sit a while in that, leaned back. They wrapped her in the furs to keep her warm, and she thanked them both and took her bowl.

Jaime picked up Sapphire and took his seat beside her.

“I’ll just pop back home,” Weslar said with a gleam in his eye. “I’ve got the perfect accompaniment, and I think we could all do with some this night.”

“Not your dandelion ale?” asked Kiren.

“The very same. I hope you remembered to put it in the snow!”

Kiren rolled her eyes but nodded, and Weslar went off back through the trees towards his own hut.

On Jaime’s lap, Sapphire waved a little wooden rattle, painted a bright red.

“This is new?” Jaime asked Brienne.

She nodded, shifting on her pillows to get comfortable. “Giddon made it for her.”

Jaime nodded his thanks to the man. He’d often got the impression that their oldest neighbour didn’t much care for him, but he was a man of few words, so the subject had not yet come up.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Pretty little babe, for all she looks like her mother.”

“Yes,” said Jaime with a frown.

“Thought you might like the colour.”

“It’s very nice.”

“Fit for a little lady, I thought.”

“Very much so.”

Giddon grunted and went back to his bowl as Kiren scooped a generous portion of stew into it.

Sapphire looked up at Jaime and smiled a pretty little smile, showing off the two new teeth she had. He pressed a kiss to the top of her soft golden curls. She joined in the hubbub of conversation around the table, chattering earnestly away in a stream of nonsense that vaguely followed the patterns and rhythms of speech. Jaime watched with pride as she waved the rattle with some determination. He couldn’t wait to see how she would look wielding a sword.

Kiren went around the table with the cookpot, dishing out portions of thick rabbit stew into everyone’s bowls. Little Tobas and Dravor sat patiently, but the elder brother moaned about the presence of yet more of Giddon’s carrots. He was warned by Mertha to eat it in silence lest he get nothing.

Weslar returned with his famous ale, a large clay jug stoppered with a filthy cork. He poured a mug of it for each of the adults. Brienne sniffed hers with a grimace but drank it anyway, coughing at the sour taste.

“Did you _make_ this?” she asked Weslar.

“Indeed I did!” he said with a grin.

Everyone around drank deeply and pronounced it his best batch yet. It certainly smelled strong – though in the way that cow shit smelled strong.

Jaime wet his lip in his out of politeness but put his cup back down. Weslar filled Brienne’s cup again, and she drank more, to the cheers of everyone present. She came out of her cup with a splutter, her eyes watering, which made everyone around the table laugh. Weslar filled her up again.

Kiren handed Jaime a bowl of stew with some extra for Sapphire, and he set about mashing the carrots for the babe. Sapphire opened her mouth eagerly, already anticipating the first spoonful. Always hungry, his Sapphire. She was going to be big like her mother.

“A very fine stew!” Weslar commended his wife. “Worth all that crawling about on our bellies, wouldn’t you say, Jaime?”

Jaime offered him a thin smile, but no more.

“You’ve done well with the rabbits,” Mertha said. “Where are you setting these traps?”

“Never you mind!” boomed Weslar, poking his spoon at her. There was quite a bit of friendly rivalry among the hunters.

Jaime grinned at Brienne – no one knew that she and her nimble snare-tying fingers were their secret weapon.

She smiled back, drinking more of the dandelion ale.

“Better watch your backs tomorrow,” Auster teased. “The pair of you will come home with arrows between your shoulderblades from the terrible twins!”

“I have no fear,” Weslar laughed. “Jaime and I make a very fine team.”

There were nods from all around the table, and Jaime felt something that was dangerously close to pride. He pushed it down – it was ridiculous. Why did this feel more fulfilling than being raised to the Kingsguard?

Weslar went around the table again, topping up everyone’s cups. He went back to his own seat at the head of the table and took his cup of ale and raised it high. “How about we drink to teamwork?” he suggested.

Everyone tipped their glasses and drank.

“And to new friendship. And to both our lovely wives!” Weslar suggested. He offered Jaime a rueful smile. “The wives we have and the wives no longer with us.”

Beside him, Brienne’s eyes went wide. Jaime ignored her stare and exchanged spoon for cup, lifting it to toast. He had the merest sip and put it down again, feeling his face burn.

“’Wives no longer with us’?” Brienne asked.

An icy fist gripped Jaime’s heart. He closed his eyes.

“Forgive me, Brienne,” Weslar said. “Jaime and I have been talking man-to-man.”

“Is that so?”

“I told him of my dear departed wife, Emely. She left this world nine years ago, and the pain is still with me. Though of course my lovely Kiren –”

“And Jaime?” Brienne turned to him. Jaime concentrated very hard on getting a piece of carrot into Sapphire’s mouth. “Did you tell Weslar about your ‘dear departed wife’?”

Weslar sensed he had done something wrong now – Jaime saw his eyes flick nervously between the two of them.

Nobody said anything.

“I hope you remembered to tell him about the part where she tried to have you killed.”

Now everyone at the table looked into their bowls.

“No?” Brienne continued. “Perhaps you remembered the part where she lay with several other men behind your back? Or how you were so blissfully happy with her that you lay with me every night for a moon and got Sapphire on me.”

“Brienne –”

“Please stop me if I get something wrong, Jaime.”

The silence was as thick as treacle. Jaime quite wished he could drown in it.

Weslar cleared his throat. “My apologies,” he said. “I should not have said aught.”

Brienne shook her head. She drank deep of her ale.

Jaime went back to mashing at his stew to feed it to Sapphire. He dropped his head low so his hair all but covered his face.

The others ate their stew twice as fast as they usually would. The banter did not resume, and as soon as the meal finished, they made excuses about the lateness of the hour. Auster and Weslar took Brienne back to bed without a word.

Jaime and Kiren cleaned the table, Jaime collecting the bowls and Kiren tying them into a bundle so that she might take them to the river to wash them on the morrow. They bid each other a strained goodnight, and Jaime carried Sapphire indoors for her bedtime feed. Neither he nor Brienne said anything to each other.

The silence continued as he undressed Sapphire and changed her napkin. Garbed her in her nightgown. He sat her on the pillows beside Brienne to play with her new rattle while he undressed himself.

“Why do you do it?” she asked. So suddenly it made Jaime start.

He turned to her. He was naked. “What?”

Her eyes went from his face to his cock. Back to his face. “Talk about Cersei like that. Idealise her. Romanticise what you had.”

“I’m not.”

“Do you truly believe that?”

Jaime didn’t answer. “You’re drunk,” he said instead. “You’re drunk, and you shamed us both.”

“Do you truly think your relationship with Cersei was anything like what Weslar had with his first wife? Or what he has with Kiren now?”

“You don’t understand. You think that because she was my sister –”

She groaned. “Please, Jaime. The sister thing means nought to me. If she truly had been your wife, I’d feel the same. You should too.”

“Why can’t you be sad for me?” he snapped. “I know how Cersei was; I know what you thought of her – what everyone did. But you expect me just to turn off my feelings, to be glad she’s dead? Do I not deserve some comfort for losing someone that I loved, regardless of her character? Why can’t you just sympathise and treat me with a little bit of kindness? Is it so beyond you?”

“ _Kindness_ , Jaime?! Do you jest?”

“Maybe that’s why I raised it with Weslar – maybe I just wanted to have someone say a kind word to me. Maybe that’s why I’m so stuck on it. I can’t grieve her … everyone feels like I shouldn’t, that she was not worth my tears, but there they are nonetheless.”

Brienne looked less than sympathetic.

“If I let her go … if I stop … who else would care for her?”

Brienne took a deep breath. She closed her eyes.

“Tyrion cared,” she said. “Tyrion gave her a state funeral. Did Addam not tell you? A funeral befitting a king. Well – a queen in her case.”

Jaime gaped. “He – he did?”

Sapphire tired of her rattle and started to grizzle. Brienne plucked at the laces on her tunic to free her breast.

“Addam should have told you.” Brienne’s bottom lip trembled. Her arms went tight around Sapphire as the babe settled down to suckle. “He had Cersei’s bones laid overnight in what was left of the throne room, the stones on her eyes. Lit the braziers. Had a minstrel with a fiddle play the Rains of Castermere all night.”

“Tyrion …” His voice was barely a breath.

“He asked me to stand vigil, as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.”

Jaime looked up. Brienne’s eyes were terrible pits of black shadow, and her mouth trembled to even speak of it. It had cost her dear, that vigil, he could tell. Even speaking of it …

“I thought it particularly cruel – given what happened between us – but I did my duty. I stood at your Queen’s feet all night with the cold wind and the snow and the open sky all around me. I listened to your thrice-damned house song for hours on end, and I held the sword you gave me.”

She closed her eyes, and a single moonlit tear ran down her cheek. As she suckled, Sapphire lifted a chubby hand to touch it.

“He’d laid your bones out beside hers. Your golden hand at the end of your right arm, your bones as smashed and broken as your sister’s.”

“M-my body?” Gods. Tyrion – what had he done? Buried a stranger with Cersei? Given some commoner Jaime’s place of rest beside his sister?

Brienne scoffed. “I suppose the dead were in plentiful supply the day he smuggled you out of the city. All he had to do was find a man of your height, your colouring, chop his hand off. Smash him up.”

He had, he truly had! Tyrion had buried a random stranger next to Cersei. It was so absurd Jaime wanted to laugh. But Brienne wasn’t finished.

“Don’t talk to me about thwarted grief, Jaime – how do you think it felt to stand vigil over the man I loved while he was laid to rest with the woman who destroyed him?”

“I –”

“You truly yearn for sympathy? To identify with ordinary, decent folk like Weslar and Kiren? It’s not me holding you back from that; it’s _her_. It’s always her.”

“Cersei?”

“Of course Cersei! You think Cersei’s your happiness? She’s the only thing that’s ever kept you from being happy, Jaime. Even after she’s dead, she’s holding you back and holding you prisoner. It’s her who robs you of your chance at life, even now.”

He shook his head, desperately trying to think of something, some anecdote, some crumb, to show Brienne that she was wrong. Grasping desperately at his rage, his resentment, his fury at Brienne. It was _her_ fault! It was –

“Weslar’s wife wouldn’t want that for him. No one would. Someone who loved you would want you to be happy – that’s what love is.”

It evaporated. Everything did.

It came out of his mouth in a noise – a long, breathy whine that hurt his chest.

Cersei had wanted him dead. She’d asked the Mountain to do it. She’d sent Bronn to do it. Cersei didn’t care if they died together. She’d lain with Euron Greyjoy. Told him the babe was his.

The babe … the babe. His babe with Cersei. Cersei’s belly had been flat.

Flat … flat. Jaime hadn’t said a word. He’d held Cersei, comforted her, told her nothing mattered, but he’d _known_. Deep down he’d known it had all been a lie. _That_ had mattered. He hadn’t been able to stop it from mattering, no matter how hard he’d fought.

There was no babe, none that he had put there, anyway.

The only babe he’d made was Sapphire.

The only woman who’d loved him was Brienne.

It hit him harder than every brick in the Red Keep. Knocked his brains out of his head. Stabbed him through the guts worse than Euron Greyjoy had. It hurt – it _hurt_.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t –

He _had to_.

He looked up at Brienne, terrified. Somehow he was on his knees. She looked back at him, her blue eyes wide. Her hair a spray of pillow fuzz around her. That look … that _look_. The look she had given him at the Dragonpit. A look of care, of worry, of love.

Love …

He’d destroyed himself – lost his youth, his health, his strength, his beauty for Cersei. Lost his child and the woman he’d loved … for Cersei.

All for Cersei. All for nought.

His head – his head was hurting. Bursting. His skin felt loose on his bones, and his mind seemed a strange, echoing thing. The world folded in on itself and he –

“Fit,” he gasped.

“Oh – _Gods!”_ he heard Brienne exclaim as his body stiffened. He saw her jump to catch him. And then just blackness.

He came back to the world to hear Sapphire screaming. He had the taste of blood in his mouth and the scent of Brienne above him. She was off the bed, beside him on the floor, groaning and clutching herself between the legs. He had something between his teeth, the handle of Sapphire’s bright red rattle. He spat it out.

“Brienne …” he said. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t hear him; tears of pain rolled down her face.

“Oh … what – what did you –”

She’d caught him. Fallen off the bed with him and hurt herself.

He staggered to his knees, his head swimming. Everything hurt. Everything. Cersei was dead and so was he and Tyrion had buried them both and he was free.

Free …

Jaime dragged Brienne back onto the bed, telling her he was sorry. He was sorry, he was sorry, he was so so sorry. He tucked her in and soothed her and smoothed her hair and kissed her head.

He went for the bottle of poppymilk and she shook her head and said “No more.”

No more.

No more.

Sapphire clung to him, crying. He kissed her and soothed her and clung to her, too. He rocked her tight against his chest, his daughter. His perfect daughter. Her tears dried up and she dozed in his arms. His daughter. The baby he’d made with Brienne.

He looked at her and looked at Brienne, and it felt like holding his child for the first time.

He slipped beneath the furs beside her, Sapphire asleep between them. The candlelight flickered and bathed them in a soft orange glow.

He needed to tell her. He needed to tell her that he loved her – it was the strongest thing he’d ever felt in his life.

“Brienne …”

He reached for her hand. Grasped it tight.

“Go to sleep, Jaime,” she whispered. But she didn’t pull her hand away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone is doing well in this crazy world we have right now. Thanks so much for sticking with the story and for all your fabulous comments and kudos and just for reading. It's certainly making my lockdown more bearable!
> 
> Particular thanks (as always) to the lovely CaptainTarthister for her boundless enthusiasm, advice and support with this chapter. I am really blessed to have such a wonderful friend take this journey beside me.
> 
> A very lovely reader has once again made a playlist for Jaime Without Brienne! She's made some truly inspired track choices and I think it's the perfect accompaniment to the story. Please go and listen [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3LmWk4CW3argNpmnYwy7M2). She's going to be adding more as the story progresses, too.
> 
> If you're interested in getting updates and teasers of the upcoming chapters, please also come and follow me on my Twitter account, [@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister).
> 
> Thanks again for reading, see you soon for chapter 6!


	6. Amethyst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne are slowly recovering.

Brienne was beautiful.

Jaime thought of her as he woke in the morning, as he went to make his water in the woods. He thought of her when he swept the snow from the steps, when he cleaned the dishes from last night. He thought of her as he fed and brushed Sunchaser, as he changed Sapphire’s shitty napkin.

Thoughts of Brienne were like sunshine. Like air. Like the whispering voice of wind through the trees, like silence and peace and contentment.

He thought of her and smiled.

“I love you,” he whispered to the morning sunshine, as he hung the napkins out to dry. Wishing he was speaking those words between gentle kisses, speaking them into the soft white skin of her neck as he made love to her.

She didn’t know.

At first, it had felt too raw, too private. Too delicate, too – like a tiny green shoot poking out from the last of the winter snow. He had feared that he would tumble backwards into the freezing abyss of Cersei, poppymilk and pain. He hadn’t known how to live without that; he hadn’t known if he _could_.

But weeks had passed, and then a moon, and then a second and a third. Three moons since they had spoken about the funeral that Tyrion had given him and Cersei. Three moons since he had felt he died and been reborn.

All that time he’d held these feelings tight inside, nurturing them, loving them. Brienne didn’t know. She didn’t know.

All that time he’d watched how beautiful she was. How fresh her face when she woke in the morning, how luminous her skin in the candlelight at night. Her hair had grown long since they had been living in the hut and he found himself fascinated with the way it curled slightly behind her ears when it was damp, the way it gave him urges to lift it away from the back of her neck and press his lips behind her ear.

He loved her fingers when they held her teacup. He loved the way her lip stuck to her teeth when she smiled at Sapphire. He loved the crease between her brows when she was brooding on the women she had lost.

He loved Brienne. He loved Brienne.

“Watch Sapphire,” she called from behind him, breaking his reverie. He dropped the wet napkin he was pegging to the washing line.

“Wh-what?”

“Sapphire,” she said with a furrowed brow. Negotiating the step from hut to pathway gingerly on the crutches Weslar had made for her. “I need to use the privy.”

He slopped the wet napkin over the line and went into the hut.

Sapphire crawled to him as soon as he got inside, pulling herself to her feet on the leg of his breeches. He hauled her into his arms with a kiss and a smile grin.

Brienne had banked the fire up high, and the heat was quite intense, particularly after washing out the napkins in the freezing river. Jaime rubbed his frozen fingers dry on his breeches and held his hand out to get warm. His hand was red and rough like a washerwoman’s.

“You need to shit less,” he told his baby daughter. “Look at the state of my poor hand.”

She nodded, babbling at him like she was answering.

“You _do_ ,” he told her, shifting her higher on his hip with his stumped arm and booping her nose with his finger.

She grabbed his face with both arms and pressed a wet kiss to his cheekbone. He laughed and kissed her right back, tickling her cheek with his beard to squeals of laughter.

Brienne came in from making her water and sat on the bed with a groan.

“How fares your hip this morning?” he asked.

“Sore,” she said.

“What did I tell you? You did too much yesterday.”

Brienne creased her brow. The sulky set of her mouth was quite adorable. “I need to get fit.”

“You can’t force it.”

“I have two moons.”

“That might be optimistic.”

She shook her head. “I can do it.”

They fell silent for a moment, save for Sapphire’s chatter. The babe leaned over his arm, reaching to get back on the floor. Jaime put her back down among her toys.

“Does it need to be two moons?” he asked Brienne.

She lay back on the bed, her eyes closed, rubbing one of her arse cheeks with the heel of her hand. Her toes pointed – her feet were big but strangely as elegant as her hands. Jaime had a somewhat baffling urge to suck her toes. “Sapphire will be a year old. Old enough to wean. Old enough that we can leave her with Weslar and Kiren.”

Leave her. Leave her and go to the capital to assassinate Bran Stark.

“You truly want to do this, don’t you?”

“What made you think I’d changed my mind?”

He shrugged. “The thought that we may not come back?”

She opened her eyes. “When have you ever run away from a fight?”

Jaime shrugged. “Killing a crippled boy doesn’t seem like much of a fight.”

“You’ve seen how dangerous he is. He killed your brother, didn’t he? Addam. All the people at the farm. You saw how he’d twisted the Kingsguard. He needs to be stopped.”

“It needn’t be us, though.”

“Do you jest? You’re the Black Hole, Jaime. That has to have a purpose behind it.”

“I’m also Sapphire’s father. As you are her mother.”

She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again as if she’d thought better of it. She shook her head. “That doesn’t release me from a vow.”

“Your _vow_? Who did you make this vow to?”

“To myself,” she said with a grunt. “To Bancey, Nira, Alara. To Addam. And to Podrick. All those who died because of Bran the Broken.”

She did not include Tyrion, he noticed. “You would orphan our daughter for revenge?”

“Our daughter isn’t safe while he lives.”

“He hasn’t come for us again.”

“Most like he can’t see us. Addam said the Black Hole is miles wide – without someone to follow here, he would not know where in those miles we are. Nor would he know it was you he was looking for.”

“That makes no sense.”

“I don’t know!” Brienne snapped. “I heard this third-hand in a moment of stress. I didn’t think to ask questions.”

Jaime fell silent.

“You would truly have us stay here?”

“Why not? We are inconspicuous here. Safer than we’d be out in the world where someone might recognise us. And these people …”

“We could bring death to these people. The longer we’re here, the more likely that grows. The others … at the farm … at least they knew what the stakes were. These people think we’re peasants.”

“They won’t for long. Not when you’re fit enough to start drilling with that sword.”

Brienne looked troubled by that. “We should tell them – truly; it’s been quite dishonourable to let the lie go on so long as it has.”

Jaime sighed. His eyes went to Sapphire, bashing her bright red rattle on the bedframe. To the stack of logs in the corner, the brace of rabbits he’d prepared for market—the pile of clean napkins on the shelf. To the small bed they’d shared as a family.

Back to being a fucking Lord again. A Lannister. Kingslayer, oathbreaker, man without honour. _Sister-fucker._

“We can’t leave Sapphire here,” he argued. “If I move, the Black Hole moves, yes? Away from her.”

Brienne swallowed. She hadn’t thought of that, he realised. “Sapphire’s a babe. Perhaps Bran would not recognise that she is _our_ babe.”

“Are you certain of that?”

She frowned. “Perhaps we _would_ need to bring her with us.”

“Bring our babe to commit regicide? Like a family day out? I think we need to give this all some serious thought.”

Brienne’s brow furrowed even deeper. “Two moons, Jaime. Two moons and we leave. Bran the Broken _will_ die by my sword.”

Her murderous oath was interrupted by the sound of Weslar’s happy whistle, coming up the path to the hut. He banged on the door and called for Jaime.

“It’s market day,” Jaime said with a sigh. He pulled open the door to admit Weslar. Sapphire crawled over to the big man at once, babbling excitedly to see him.

“Good morning to you as well, young Sapphire,” he said. “I am sorry to be so early, but I promised Giddon I would give him a ride to town on the way to set up at the market.”

“Oh?” asked Jaime, limping over to the brace of rabbits he’d prepared. “What’s the old goat up to today?”

“More than today; he’ll be gone for a moon at least - he’s off to visit his daughter in the capital, he likes to do that once a year.”

“He didn’t mention a daughter,” said Brienne from the bed.

“He doesn’t talk much about her,” said Weslar with a shrug. “Not that he talks about much of anything, but his daughter … well, pardon my frankness, but she works in a brothel.”

Jaime burst out laughing. Brienne shot him a glare.

“It’s the first time he’s been to see her since – well, you know what happened in King’s Landing all too well.” Weslar jerked his head at Jaime’s cane.

Jaime nodded. Unhooked the rabbits from the rack and passed them to Weslar.

“Do you need anything from the market?” their neighbour asked.

“Just the usual,” Jaime said. “Some bread, a little more of that cheese. Carrots too, if Giddon’s going away. Some lye to get the worst out of Sapphire’s napkins.”

“Don’t worry about carrots,” Weslar said. “He’s said I could dig as many up as I want while he’s away.”

“I’d like a whetstone too,” said Brienne.

“What?” said Jaime.

“To keep the knives sharp.”

She meant for Oathkeeper, of course. Jaime knew straight away. “The knives are plenty sharp. We borrow Weslar’s, don’t we?”

“We can’t keep borrowing things that aren’t ours, Jaime. Not _forever_.”

He fixed her with a glare, which she ignored.

“A whetstone, please, Weslar.”

The big man nodded. After Brienne’s outburst at the dinner table that night, Weslar had kept well out of any sort of conflict between the two of them, no matter how petty.

Jaime sulked, but at least if Brienne were sharpening her sword that meant he would see her fighting and drilling and _gods,_ but she was magnificent with a sword in her hand. He could see her now, maybe in a clearing in the woods, stripped down to her tunic, sweaty with exertion, her newly-grown hair blowing about her face and her beautiful hands wrapped around that lion-headed hilt.

“Jaime?” Weslar – abruptly Jaime realised the man had been speaking.

“Sorry – what?”

“Sunchaser?”

“Oh, Sunchaser – yes. Of course.” Jaime spluttered, snapping himself out of his Brienne-reverie. He snatched his cane and pushed the hut door open.

“Anything amiss, Jaime?” asked Weslar as Jaime fumbled with Sunchaser’s bridle.

“No! No …”

“How about with Brienne?”

“Not that I know of. She overdid it a bit yesterday, and she’s a bit sore …”

“Ah.”

Weslar looked entirely unconvinced, but thankfully he didn’t press matters further. He put Sunchaser’s saddle on and hitched the cart to his back. He put Jaime’s rabbits in there along with his own game, and clambered up onto the horse’s back.

“Right, I’d best go and fetch Giddon before he decides he’ll walk to King’s Landing.”

“Yes. I – I hope all goes well at market.”

Weslar laughed and clapped Jaime on the back. “I’ve got a good feeling about today. I’ll see you at sundown with your coin!”

With that, the big man rode off. Jaime watched him go with a pang of regret. Perhaps Brienne had the right of it – if Bran Stark’s Ravens came here ...

Maybe he couldn’t exactly call Weslar a friend, but … Jaime had found the appeal in his way of life, that was for certain. Throughout his time as a Lannister lord, Jaime had always been grateful for the accident of his birth – he’d always thought he would be useless at anything else.

But here and now, the ebb and flow of his days, the comforting repetition of tasks, the simple succours of food and warmth and Brienne and Sapphire … he’d found a peace that he’d never before known in his life.

There was something to be said for simplicity, even though he’d never imagined he’d be the one saying it.

And simple was the way the rest of his day went. He washed some clothes, then some more napkins. He made a midday meal and fed Sapphire while Brienne examined and cleaned her armour. It had taken several days and four good scrubs of her gambeson with lye, but finally the smell of the privy pit had gone. He hung it to dry at the back of the hut where no one was likely to see it.

Mid-afternoon, Jaime made some damson tea to drink while Brienne fed Sapphire and put her down for a nap. Brienne slept too, curled on her side the way she had that first night they had lain together after the feast. Jaime sat on the end of the bed and sipped his tea, watching her the way he should have watched her sleep that night.

With love. With wonder.

He ached to hold her. Ached to reach out and brush the mess of her hair back behind her ear, to feel the warmth of the pulsebeat in her neck, to feel her strong, gentle hands on his body. He imagined her rolling sleepily towards him and winding her arms around his neck. Pulling him in for a kiss.

As he watched, Sapphire wriggled closer to her mother, and she wrapped her arms about their babe in her sleep. It was so beautiful Jaime realised he was smiling.

He loved her so much it hurt.

_Brienne …_ even her name felt sensual in his mouth.

He whispered it to himself over and over as he walked through the woods that afternoon to check the traps – _Brienne … Brienne … Brienne_. Gods, being in love with her felt _good_ —a warmth in his belly, a spring in his limp. It made everything he looked at look beautiful; everything he thought feel _right_.

He spent some time sitting on a tree stump, massaging his aching legs and gazing at the brilliant winter-blue of the sky. Brienne’s eyes were more blue and more beautiful. Above him, the snow twinkled in the sunshine in the treetops. Brienne’s skin was paler and more luminous.

By the time he got back to the hut, the sun was going down, and Jaime had another three rabbits to show for his efforts. Auster, Culler, Mertha and the twins were out front, Brienne seated at the table chopping vegetables for the soup pot they were stirring. She was sipping some ale (though not Weslar’s this time), smiling and laughing. Jaime resisted the urge to press a kiss to her forehead. Kiren and her boys played with Sapphire, holding her little hands and toddling her through the garden.

The meal had long since finished when Weslar returned, leading Sunchaser by the bridle into the lean-to stable they had made besides their hut. Jaime left Brienne to ready Sapphire for sleep, collecting their coin and their market wares and exchanging a few pleasantries at the door.

Weslar bade them both goodnight and headed back to his own hut for the night. Jaime put his warm cloak on, checked on Sunchaser and then went inside and bolted the door.

Brienne was ready for bed, dressed in her nightshirt with the fire banked up warm and the furs turned down. She was limping around the room, blowing out the candles while Sapphire sat on the floor playing with her toys.

Jaime sat on the bed to sort through the bag Weslar had given him. There was his bread, his cheese, and his lye. A small pouch of coin, too, for the rabbits they’d sold. Beneath it, at the bottom, was Brienne’s whetstone. Jaime put it on the side without comment and stood up to undress himself for bed. He pulled his tunic off and dropped his breeches and smallclothes to the floor for tomorrow.

“Jaime!” Brienne hissed suddenly from beside him, and he looked up to see her face, white with shock.

“What? What’s the matter?”

She let go of her crutch to point frantically at Sapphire.

Sapphire, who was holding her rattle. Sapphire, who was on her feet. Sapphire, who was taking her very first steps.

“Oh, my gods!” Jaime exclaimed.

“She – she’s walking!”

“She’s walking …” he repeated. Jaime and Brienne grabbed each other. Scarcely believing what they were seeing. Clinging to each other for dear life as they watched their daughter walk across the room.

As they watched, Sapphire took four more tottering steps before falling onto her bottom with a bump.

They both turned to each other, huge grins on their faces, a joyous, excited laugh bubbling from both of them. Jaime had never seen Brienne’s smile so wide, not since he’d knighted her before the battle at Winterfell. She looked so … so …

Oh, Gods …

Before he had time to think on it, he had pulled her to him and kissed her hard.

Brienne made a noise – a squeak of surprise, but then – _gods_ – she kissed him back, so hard she almost knocked him off his feet. He reeled with the shock of it. He was kissing Brienne! Brienne was kissing _him_.

Gods! _Gods …_

Her kisses were the same as they had always been – soft, wet and clumsy, all teeth and tongue, but he groaned into her mouth, dizzy with her. She took his face in both her hands and he clutched for her breast and then her arse.

The next thing he knew, they were on the bed, kissing feverishly, hands everywhere. It was happening – oh, _fuck_ , it was really happening!

He pulled at the ties on her nightshirt and she wrapped a leg over his naked hip. They weren’t stopping – it was _happening_. Panted breaths and hammering hearts.

Jaime sat up, his cock sticking up painfully hard from his lap, his hand sliding her nightshirt up over her thighs. She was naked beneath, her cunt rich and ripe and swollen with arousal. His head _hurt_ at the sight of her.

She spread her legs, and he dove into it, buried his face in it, all the heady, flavoursome musky salt-sweet of her filling his mouth. Brienne hissed and arched upwards. Jaime gave a guttural groan and thrust his tongue inside her, obscenely deep.

“No,” she said. Then “No!” again. She grasped the front of Jaime’s hair and yanked him out of her cunt. Shoved him away with a foot. “Stop,” she said. “Please stop.”

They stared at each other, both exposed and aroused, breathing ragged. The fire popped and crackled in the hearth. Sapphire, oblivious, chattered to herself and her toys.

“We can’t,” Brienne said. She had her hand over her mouth as if shocked by what had just taken place. “I can’t.”

Jaime stammered. Started about four different sentences, but the only thing that ended up coming out of his mouth was “Wh-why?”

She didn’t answer. She sat up on the bed, frantically tugging her nightshirt back down her thighs. “No,” she said again.

He stared after her as she picked up Sapphire, cradling her against her neck.

“You’re mother’s clever little girl,” she crooned. Kissing her cheeks, holding the babe against her like a shield.

Jaime stared at her open-mouthed. If it weren’t for the fact that she was red-faced, his cock like a trebuchet and his beard slick from her cunt, he would have wondered if the whole thing had been a poppymilk dream. Gone as soon as it started.

Brienne brought Sapphire onto the bed without looking at Jaime. Freed her flushed breast from her nightshirt and settled down to feed the babe to sleep. She closed her own eyes, too.

“Aren’t you going to talk to me about this?” he said.

Her eyes flew open. “Put some clothes on.”

He grabbed the soft breeches he slept in and pulled them on, trying to make his cock understand that it wasn’t going to get what it desperately wanted. The stupid thing throbbed and bobbed in front of him, leaking from the head. Jaime wanted to cry for how pathetic it was. He grabbed his cane and went to wash his beard in the washbowl.

“Brienne?” he pushed. “Why stop? What does it matter? Everyone thinks you’re my wife.”

“I don’t,” she said.

“You want a Septon’s blessing? Is that it?”

She looked at him as if he’d lost his wits.

“I love you, Brienne,” he confessed. “I – you … when we spoke last about Cersei. The funeral – your vigil. It made me realise … a _lot_ of things. How foolish I’d been …”

“I know,” she said.

“And since then, I understood. I understood what you mean to me, what these feelings mean, what – wait … you know?”

“Yes. You think you’ve kept it to yourself? Every time you’ve looked at me since, it’s been all over your face. You’ve been weak in the knees and your eyes are full of the moon. Did you think I didn’t know?”

“I – I …” he spluttered.

“You think yourself in love with me.” She shook her head and looked away.

“I _am_ ,” he said.

Brienne scoffed. “You don’t even know what that means.”

“What?!” Jaime all but exploded. “You think I haven’t spent all my life lost in love? You think I haven’t killed and maimed and dishonoured myself for the love of a woman?”

“There. Listen to yourself! Still talking as if what you had with that viperous bitch was anything like _love_. I want no part of your feelings if that’s what they are.”

“It’s –”

But she cut him off. “All you’ve done is transfer your unhealthy, self-destructive obsession from her to me. I see it all over your face, Jaime, in every word you speak to me. You think yourself in love and yet you can barely say a kind word.”

“That’s not so!”

“It is. You pick at me and tease me and butt heads with me at every turn. You can’t see it because you’ve known ‘love’ no other way. And you expect you can just declare your feelings to me and have me fall at your feet? Because who could possibly resist wild, intense incest love? I’ve seen what it’s like Jaime, and as much as I might want you, as much as I might harbour feelings for a fantasy I once had of you, I respect myself too much ever to do it again.”

“This place is not Winterfell. Things are different here.”

She shook her head. “I’m different, too. There was a time I would have gone back to you. But that was right after you rode away. If you’d turned around then and come back, begged for my forgiveness, it would have hurt, but I would have done it. Now …”

“Brienne …”

“No! You left me without saying goodbye, to die in the arms of another woman. I’ve thought on this a lot, tied myself in knots over it, trying to find an excuse. But … there’s no coming back from that, Jaime. No way that I could do it without accepting that I’d always be your second choice. And that’s without everything that’s happened since.”

“But I … I _love_ you. I love Sapphire; we’re a family. I want to be a family.”

“I believe you, Jaime,” she said. She was silent then for the longest moment, stroking Sapphire’s golden hair as she suckled. “I believe you love Sapphire, and I believe you think you love me. But … that’s not enough.”

“Then what would be?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes, there isn’t an ‘enough’. Sometimes you can love someone as hard as you physically can, and it won’t make a difference if they don’t love you back.”

That _hurt_. It hurt so much Jaime could barely breathe.

“I need some air,” he told her, shoving his feet into his boots.

Brienne nodded but said nothing.

He threw his tunic back on and then his cape. Threw open the door and stumbled out into the frozen night air. Leaned heavily on his cane and waited for the tears. His chest hurt. His throat hurt. His stomach felt as though it was on fire. He opened his mouth, and a sound came out, half a gasp and half a sob. His own throat was strangling him.

Then he heard something. A whisper. A footstep. At first he thought it was the trees, but then he heard it again, a movement behind him.

Sunchaser? The sounds seemed to be coming from inside the lean-to. But it was a human voice, a human whisper. Jaime crept closer.

There was a man in there – he could see the shape of him moving in the shadows by Sunchaser’s flank. Tall, but rangy. Not big enough to be Weslar.

A horse thief! Someone was trying to steal Sunchaser.

Jaime thought for a moment about running inside, getting Brienne, getting her out here with Oathkeeper. But he doubted there was time, and he didn’t think the thief knew he was here. He didn’t want to lose the advantage.

Jaime raised his cane and snuck into the lean-to. Close enough to hear what the thief was whispering.

“Come on, we’ll get you out of here,” he heard. “Where’s your saddle?”

They kept the saddle in the carriage, parked behind the hut. Strange that a horse thief would take the time to saddle his prize, though.

It mattered not. Jaime slithered along the wall, getting closer and closer, holding his breath, holding the cane ready to strike. If he hit him over the ear, if he got a good blow …

But of course, his stupid, useless, traitorous feet got the better of him. They tangled on each other as he stepped closer, and he all but fell into the man, bundling him to the floor.

The thief cried out in alarm and Jaime got the opportunity to get a punch in, though it was poorly placed and had little power behind it thanks to his twisted arm. The thief twisted away, but Jaime rolled with him, clinging to him for all he was worth.

The two of them rolled out of the lean-to, completely ignored by Sunchaser, who continued eating hay as if nothing was happening.

“Brienne!” yelled Jaime, taking a punch to the cheekbone so hard it made him see stars.

The thief grunted. “What?”

“Brienne!” Jaime called again, louder. “Get Oathkeeper!”

“Jaime?” said the thief.

Just then, Brienne opened the hut door, coming out with a crutch under one arm and Oathkeeper in her hand. The light from inside spilt out into the snow, over Jaime and the thief.

Jaime saw Brienne’s eyes go wide. Looked down at the man he was clinging to, saw a shock of red hair spilling out into the snow.

“Brienne …” the thief gasped.

It was Addam Marbrand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay ... first off. I'm sorry. This is the way the story went at this point, please don't yell at me in the comments! There are six more chapters to go in this part, and I'm considering another POV change after that. 
> 
> Secondly, if you haven't left in disgust, then THANK YOU! Thank you for having the faith in the story and for so many wonderful comments and thoughts and discussions that I've had with so many over this fic. It's been an incredible experience and an endless pleasure. Apart from the pearl-clutching!
> 
> Please give a big thank you to CaptainTarthister. I had to break my bestie's heart to write this chapter and she's still here by my side like a champ. Mwah!
> 
> Also a HUGE thanks to my wonderful reader who has once again compiled a fantastic playlist for this fic. It's really great and she's updating it with new tracks for every chapter. You can check it out on Spotify [here.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3LmWk4CW3argNpmnYwy7M2)
> 
> Lastly, if you're interested in chatting to me about this story or anything else, or if you'd like teasers as I'm writing, please come and follow me on Twitter [@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister). I look forward to saying hi!


	7. Iris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Addam's arrival changes the dynamic.

Jaime pulled himself to his feet. Limped to the hut – he had dropped his cane somewhere in the brawl. Bumped his head, too; his jaw hurt and his head rang.

Addam. Addam Marbrand. Addam fucking Marbrand.

Alive and … well, not exactly looking well. The man looked like shit if Jaime was honest. His hair had grown long and hung shaggy and tousled about his face. He’d grown a beard, too, a rich red thing shot with silver. His eyes …

His eyes were on Brienne. Looking at her like a starving man might look at a steak.

Jaime stepped between them.

“What were you doing?” he asked.

Addam blinked and refocused his eyes on Jaime. “Sunchaser … I saw him today in the market at Ashemark. He was with a man, some hulking great peasant. I followed him back here and waited until dark. I was going to take him back.”

“Come inside,” Brienne said from behind Jaime. “Quickly.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” Addam said.

Jaime opened his mouth to protest, but Brienne yanked him through the door, too.

Both he and Addam were muddy, wet and freezing cold. Jaime realised he had blood in his mouth, and one of his teeth felt loose. He scowled at Addam and jostled with him for a place in front of the fire; Addam didn’t seem to notice.

“You’re alive,” he said, still gazing at Brienne.

Brienne was red in the face, probably still from where she and Jaime had been kissing. From where Jaime had his mouth on her. She nodded. “So are you,” she said quietly.

Addam nodded too. “I tried to get you out. I saw the fire, saw it spreading. I tried to get in after you, but …” He pushed up his sleeve. Burn scars licked the length of his arm.

“I jumped out through the privy,” Brienne said. “Me and Sapphire.”

“Gods,” said Addam, noticing the sleeping babe on the bed. “Is – is that Sapphire? She’s so big!”

Brienne smiled. “She’s ten moons old now. Crawling. Walking.”

“I pulled them out,” Jaime said. “Brienne broke her pelvis, jumping into the shit. I pulled her and Sapphire out.”

“Are you all right?” He took a step closer to Brienne, looking her up and down with worried eyes.

“Getting there,” she said. “I’m sore and walking is still difficult, but every day it gets a little better.”

“I couldn’t get to you,” Addam said again. “I couldn’t get to you so I did the next best thing. I did what I thought you would want – I got your handmaids out.”

Brienne’s eyes went huge and wide. “My – my –”

“Nira and Alara. They’re with me.”

Brienne clasped her hands together, suddenly pale and breathless. “Gods! Wh-where?”

“My mother’s house. She kept a little cottage outside Ashemark, for when she had her turns. Very few knew of it; I thought we would be safe there.”

“Are they well? Were they hurt?”

Addam shook his head. “The little one banged her head and got a little singed falling off the stable roof trying to put fires out, but the loud redhead … I watched her cut down three men. We got out where they broke the gates down. Took a horse, made our way to Ashemark.”

The same way they had gone in the carriage, Jaime realised. They were probably running even as he was pulling Brienne out of the privy pit.

“I taught them to hunt on the way,” Addam said. “We’ve eaten all right. Clever girls, both.”

Brienne nodded. Her eyes glistened.

“What about anyone else?” Jaime asked. “You only got the two of them?”

Addam blinked, suddenly remembering Jaime existed. “It was chaos. I – I barely had time to think. I wish I’d –”

“Have you seen any more of the King’s men?” Brienne asked.

“Not since we left the farm. I kept watch for a tail, circled back at least once a day, but … nothing.”

“The Black Hole,” said Brienne.

Addam nodded. “They didn’t know where to go because the King couldn’t see to follow us.”

“While Jaime lives …”

“Yes. So … you took my carriage?”

“Thought you were dead,” said Jaime. “It was _chaos,_ after all.”

“Yes, of course,” said Addam with a frown. “I hope it … served you well.”

“It did,” said Brienne. “Thank you.”

Addam looked Jaime up and down, looking at his own clothes and boots. “Do you still have some of my clothes?”

“Some,” Jaime shrugged. “We had to use a lot to make napkins for Sapphire.”

Addam blanched a little but nodded. “Of course,” he said again. “Anything you can spare – I’ve had nought to wear for months. I’m down to my mother’s smallclothes.” He picked up a foot to show the hole in the sole of his boot.

Brienne gasped. “Jaime, get him his brown boots.”

Jaime almost protested – they were the pair that came closest to fitting him. The pair he had on right now, in fact. He sat down with a sigh and pulled them off. Passed them to Addam.

“Surprised they fit you,” said Addam.

“They don’t. I’ve had to make do – mine got destroyed when I waded into the privy pit to save Brienne and Sapphire.”

Now, of course, he only had the grey pair and the black pair, both of which were a little too fancy for trap setting and napkin-washing.

“I haven’t been able to buy much,” Addam said. “I didn't want to risk being seen in the market, not so close to home as this.” He looked around him, seeming to notice the hut for the first time. The tanning rack, the brace of rabbits. The stack of snares Brienne had tied.

“Whose hut is this?” he asked. “How did you come by it?”

“Jorvan’s,” said Jaime. “He’s a Lannister soldier, probably died in the capital. We needed somewhere Brienne could recover – the neighbours have let us stay. Helped us.”

“Do they know who you are?”

“No,” said Brienne. “They think we escaped a house fire.”

“They think we’re married,” said Jaime.

Brienne averted her eyes.

“Oh,” said Addam.

There was silence for a moment.

“I should …” Addam jerked his head in the direction of the door. “Nira and Alara will want to know you’re all right.”

“Will you bring them?” Brienne asked. “Here?”

“Of course,” Addam smiled. “On the morrow, if you’d like?”

She nodded eagerly. “Please. Send them my – my love. Tell them I cannot wait to see them again.”

Addam nodded. He shifted from foot to foot, then looked between Brienne and Jaime. “Until the morrow, then, Ser.”

He stepped closer to Brienne. Surely he wouldn’t … surely not …

He did – he leaned up and pressed a kiss to her lips. Brienne’s eyes went wide for a second, but she did not push him away. The kiss lingered. Brienne was all but scarlet when he pulled away.

Jaime’s mouth tasted like puke.

Addam left, and Brienne watched him go. She sat on the bed beside the sleeping form of Sapphire.

Jaime didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He wanted to punch something, kick something. Throw something.

Brienne didn’t say anything either. Her face was still red, her hands fidgety. She started to fold the clothes that Jaime had taken off Sapphire before bed — bent to tuck some straw that had come loose from the mattress.

Jaime watched her. Burning. Burning.

“I’m going to go to sleep,” she said after a moment. Pulling herself to her full height and lifting her chin defiantly. As if challenging Jaime to say something.

He didn’t want to say something. He wanted to hold Brienne, grab onto her, beg her for something. Beg her like she had him at Winterfell, holding his face in that horrible, too-intimate grip. _Stay here. Stay with me. Please._

“Good job he didn’t look through the window, isn’t it,” he heard himself spit. “That would really have fucked his world.”

Brienne’s flush darkened.

“Will you tell him?”

“There’s nothing to tell him. In passion, I forgot myself, but I would never have lain with you.”

“Do you want him?”

“I won’t discuss my feelings for Addam with you. I told you –”

Jaime scoffed. “Have you forgotten what he did? So soon?”

“He saved my handmaids.”

“He put them in danger in the first place. Him and Tyrion with their stupid fucking plan to put me on the throne.”

“That’s not what this was about.”

“No? Not what my brother lost his head for, then?”

She sighed. “Bran Stark came for us because of this Black Hole. This thing … whatever it is you do that blocks his sight. We don’t have any evidence that Tyrion wanted you on the throne. None at all.”

“Oh, be reasonable! It’s obvious. He –”

“You had a significant blow to your head, Jaime. The maester said it made you paranoid. Vicious, too.”

Jaime blinked. “Oh _did_ he?”

“Yes. You can’t rely on what your head tells you.” She looked down – at least she had the good grace to look sorry. “And neither can I.”

“All right. So I’m paranoid and I’ve lost my wits. My brother had no plans to take the throne. So how did they find the farm? The Black Hole covers miles, you said. How did those Ravens know to come _right_ to the farm?”

Brienne went quiet.

“Because they followed Addam, didn’t they? From King’s Landing all the way there. He led them right to us.”

“He didn’t know.”

Jaime scoffed. “He knew well enough that he had to get you out, didn’t he. Well enough to stock and provision a carriage for your escape.”

“He …”

“You don’t know him at all, Brienne. As he doesn’t know you. He thought you would abandon the farm you’d sworn to defend? He thought you wouldn’t care that the smallfolk you’d trained would die? That’s not you.”

“He wanted to save me and Sapphire. Sapphire – a bastard babe with no ties to him.”

“We know why he did that. What an _honourable_ knight Ser Addam is. Putting his cock before the safety of a farm full of people.”

Brienne’s fingers twitched in her lap. “He pulled my handmaids out. He thought me dead, but he did it anyway, surely that shows –”

“Only two of them, though. How many women did you train? Thirty? Near forty?”

“It doesn’t –”

“He might have jumped into that bear pit to save you, but it would only have been because he wanted your cunt.”

Brienne scoffed and shook her head. “You don’t understand, do you?” Her voice was surprisingly steady. “I didn’t replace you with Addam. I wasn’t looking for someone to be another Jaime, to be a father to Sapphire or to make me feel the way I felt when I was with you. It doesn’t matter how many times you point out that he’s also not the man I thought you were – the relationship I have with him is an entirely different thing. And it’s something that you aren’t part of, not in the least little way.”

“Brienne –”

“You don’t know what I want from a relationship with Addam. You’ve never seen my relationship with Addam. I understand that you hate that. That you can’t bear that there are parts of my life where I am not interested in hearing Jaime Lannister’s thoughts. But stop dressing up your jealousy as altruism; we both know you never cared much for my feelings.”

But that was _before_ , he thought. Before he’d realised how much he was in love with her – but he knew that she didn’t believe _that_ , either. He just shook his head and shrugged in despair.

Brienne had a face of thunder, but she said no more. She slid under the blankets beside Sapphire, lying on her back with her arm across her forehead.

Jaime sighed. He stripped off his wet clothes and hung them on a chair before the fire to dry. Climbed into bed in his smallclothes. The two of them lay in silence, only the sound of Sapphire’s snoring between them.

Brienne rolled away to face the wall, even though sleeping that way made her hip sore in the morning. Jaime looked at her, at the curl of her hair on the pillow. The rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed. They lay so closely, but there might as well be a wall the size of – well, the Wall – between them.

But Sapphire chose that moment to shift in her sleep, rolling closer to Jaime’s warmth. She muttered some piece of nonsense and threw an arm over his face before sticking both feet in his ribs. He pulled her into his arms and kissed the soft sweetness of her hair. Smiled at her beautiful sleeping face. He listened to the crackle of the wood burning in the fire, the wind in the trees outside. The soft creak of their rickety old bed.

He didn’t want Addam here; he didn’t want bannermen and handmaids. He wanted things to be the way they were, the simple ebb and flow of days, of cooking and washing and hunting. The rhythm of life without a care about anything but living. Living and loving his daughter, and Brienne.

Here, Jaime felt more of a man than he ever had as a knight, for all his beautiful armour and prowess with the sword. He felt needed here; important, in his way. Not just a pawn in power struggles he cared nothing for. He craved simplicity.

It was some hours before he fell asleep.

The next morning, Brienne was up and dressed before the sun rose, clattering around on her crutches and making porridge for them all. She chattered excitedly to Sapphire, but said little to Jaime as he trudged into the lean-to to feed Sunchaser and find his dropped cane. She said nothing when he collected yesterday’s dishes and last night’s napkins to take them to the river.

“Not so hard!” chided Weslar from out of nowhere as he scrubbed out a particularly shitty napkin over a rock. “You’ll wear a hole in it if you’re not careful!”

Jaime looked up with a glare – sometimes Weslar was the last person he wanted to see.

“Is anything amiss?” the big man asked tentatively.

“No,” said Jaime.

“Ah good.” Their neighbour hovered, clearly unsure if he should stay or leave. “Mertha and the girls brought down a deer last night, not far from the old oak on the west bank of the river. I was going to head out there this morning, see if we might bag one or two ourselves.”

“Can’t,” said Jaime. “I’ve got shit to scrub, as always. Lots of shit.”

“Well, we don’t have to go right now. I could help you with those?”

“It’s fine.”

Weslar dithered again.

“If you’ve something on your mind, Weslar, best speak it.”

“Well, I know this is none of my business and far be it from me to get involved, but … you and Brienne are friends and neighbours. So, I’m asking because I care.”

Jaime stopped scrubbing. “Spit it out, then.”

“Is aught amiss between you and Brienne?”

“Why would you think that?” Jaime grabbed the next napkin. Slapped it onto the rock and started scrubbing.

“I don’t know. It’s just … well, of late, you have not seemed like a husband and wife should.”

“She’s not my wife.” It came out of Jaime’s mouth before he could stop himself. He ceased scrubbing and looked up at Weslar. “We never stood before a Septon.”

“Oh. Well … oh. I daresay that’s not so unusual.”

“No?” Jaime realised he had little knowledge of the wedding habits of the smallfolk.

“If a man and a woman lie together and make a child, well then the gods have blessed that union, haven’t they?”

Jaime made a face. “Babes can be born of rape, Weslar.”

“That’s true.” The big man looked troubled by that, as if Jaime had shaken his faith. “Is this the problem between you and Brienne? One of you wishes to be wed while the other does not?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Jaime sighed.

“Brienne is angry with you. Over – over your first wife.”

“Oh, yes.”

“It sours everything.”

“It does.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But you’re together, and there’s love between you. That means something.”

Did it, though? Jaime dropped his scrubbing brush and parked his arse on the rock. He loved Brienne; he knew that. Loved her so much it hurt, so much that she filled every waking thought, so much that even the trees moving in the forest seemed to whisper her name.

But that _wasn’t_ love, was it. Not according to Brienne.

And Brienne … she desired him still – that much was plain. The way she had kissed him last night, the way she had thrust her hips against his mouth as he’d tongued her …

Before she’d pushed him off, of course.

Jaime’s head hurt. He looked up at Weslar, hoping to find some answers, but the big man wasn’t looking at Jaime. He was looking over at the hut.

“Who’s that?” he asked. “Is that –"

Jaime didn’t even need to turn his head to know who it was. He got to his feet and held up his hand in greeting. “That’s Addam,” he said with a sigh.

He grabbed his cane and limped back to the hut, where Addam and Brienne’s two handmaids were coming out of the woods.

Both of the women looked like shit. Worse than Addam. The smaller one was wrapped in a long threadbare cape, and half her hair had gone – burned away by the looks of the singed ends. The redhead wore a sackcloth dress and very worn boots.

She looked Jaime up and down with a bitter look on her face. Insolent as ever.

“Brienne!” he yelled.

Brienne came out of the hut on one crutch, Sapphire in her other arm. She saw her handmaids and tried a smile, but her face crumpled almost immediately, her eyes forming big wet tears.

“Oh, Ser …” said the short girl, and both of them ran to her, wrapping themselves about her waist like a couple of lost girls who had finally found their mother. The three of them sobbed in unison.

“It’s so good to see you,” Brienne whispered between sobs.

“You too,” whispered the redhead. Tears poured down her pretty pale face. “Did you see Bancey, Ser? Did you see what happened to her? Neither of us saw her at all that night, might she have lived?”

Brienne’s face fell anew, and she sobbed even harder.

“Oh no …” said the other girl. The three of them clutched each other and wept.

Jaime and Addam eyed each other warily.

Weslar stepped forward and held out a broad palm to Addam. There was a smile on his face, but his brow was confused. “The name’s Weslar,” he said.

“Addam,” said Addam. He looked warily at Jaime.

Jaime belatedly realised introductions were due. He stepped forward. “Weslar is our neighbour,” he said. “And Addam is uh … Brienne’s brother. And they are her … sisters?”

Addam glared at Jaime. Jaime shrugged. It was possibly the least plausible lie he’d ever told; not one of them looked a thing like the others.

“Oh,” said Weslar. He looked between Jaime, Addam and the trio of sobbing women. “I suppose you all thought your sister was dead?”

“Yes,” said Addam. “Luckily, I um … got a letter she wrote, and it led me here.”

“A letter?” asked Weslar. He turned to Jaime. “Brienne can write?”

It was Jaime’s turn to glare at Addam. Honestly, the man was all but a lackwit. “A little. Her father was a learned man.”

“I’ll say he was.”

An awkward silence lingered a little too long.

“Well,” said Weslar, who was never one to enjoy awkwardness. “I’ll leave you to your reunion. I’ll head out to the old oak and see if I can nab one of those deer.”

“All right,” said Jaime. “Good – good luck, friend.”

Weslar gave him a broad smile and clapped him on the back. “You too,” he said before walking away. Addam looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“’Good luck, friend?’” he said when Weslar was out of earshot. Addam had a grin on his face now. “Whoever would have thought – Jaime Lannister, friend of the smallfolk.”

Jaime scoffed.

Brienne had stopped crying for the most part, and was grinning ear-to-ear, that near-ridiculous smile that made Jaime’s heart skip a beat. She looked so radiant. Only Brienne could look radiant with her face blotchy, tear-streaked and more than a little snotty.

Now the handmaids were cooing over Sapphire, saying how big she was, how pretty. The dark-haired burnt girl took her from Brienne and whirled about with her, making her giggle. The mouthy redhead tickled Sapphire and booped her nose.

“Hasn’t she grown, Ser?” she asked Addam, quite pointedly, Jaime thought.

“She has,” Addam agreed.

The girl put Sapphire in Addam’s arms with a sly look over her shoulder at Jaime. Jaime _burned,_ his hand twitching on his cane _._ Addam had the good grace to at least look awkward about it, though. Sapphire took a long look at the man before breaking out into one of her lovely smiles.

She put her hands in his beard, too. Of course she did.

Brienne welcomed them all into the hut, sat them all down on the edge of the bed and pottered about on her crutches, making a pot of damson tea. Jaime joined them, but he hovered by the door, silent, on edge. Feeling everyone’s eyes were both on him and also ignoring him, all at once. He started to wish he had gone with Weslar.

Addam said little too – he looked rather pensive as Brienne chatted to the handmaids and Sapphire crawled around on the floor. He had his elbow on Jaime’s pillow. Right where Jaime and Brienne had fallen, kissing, into bed last night.

_Kissing_.

Jaime tried to clutch at that memory, let it give him some hope and some solace as his thoughts of Cersei had always done. But with Brienne, it didn’t seem so simple. Cersei’s rejections had been pure caprice; he had been able to dismiss them with ease. Cersei was a Lannister, too.

_Lannisters are worth more._

The thought seemed shameful and small now, a false shield against all that threatened their family. Cersei had stood her ground on the throne believing that shit, a Lannister to her last. Believing that somehow, miraculously, she could stop a dragon with nothing more than the fact she was Tywin’s daughter.

She had killed herself with stupidity.

“Jaime?” said Brienne.

Everyone was looking at him.

“What?”

“Do you want tea?”

He shook his head. Saw the redhead suppress a giggle at his expense. “I have napkins to wash,” he sighed. He had to deal with Sunchaser’s shit, too. Always shit.

Jaime hobbled out of the hut, his legs feeling stiffer and more useless than they had in moons, almost tripping him on the way out of the door. The Limpy fucking Lion.

He made his way back to the river, back to the crash and tumble of the icy water against the rocks, the hush and whisper of the trees. The trees …

He listened to them as he soaped and scrubbed at the rest of the napkins. Breathed the fresh forest air and felt the fingers of the wind in his hair.

It seemed like the only thing keeping him sane at this moment. The only thing stopping him throwing himself in the river in an attempt to drown.

He limped back to the hut with the napkins over his arm. Pegged them to the drying line one at a time. Watching how the wind caught them, danced with them, watching how they glistened in the winter morning sun. The shadows of the trees flicked across them – beautiful and wild.

Abruptly, he heard the door to the hut open. Here, around the side of Sunchaser’s lean-to, he couldn’t see who it was. But he could hear. Footsteps. A breath, quick and indrawn.

“No. I didn’t bring you out here for – for kisses.” It was Brienne. Her voice was soft. Pleading, almost. “I need to talk to you.”

“Of course,” said Addam. He too sounded soft.

“I need to know something.”

Jaime held his breath.

“Go on,” said Addam.

“Tyrion. What were his plans for Jaime?”

“His … plans?”

“What was he going to do after he’d healed from his injuries?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did he plan to keep him on the farm forever, send him into exile? Reveal him and ask the king for clemency?”

“Why does that matter now?”

“I want to know what my part was supposed to be. He thought I would fall in love with Jaime again. Marry him. He wanted Sapphire legitimised.”

“So she could be heir to the Rock.”

“That’s it?”

“What more could there be?”

“Did he have designs on the throne?”

“Who – _Tyrion_?”

“Jaime was Cersei’s heir. And Sapphire would be his.”

“You – you think Tyrion planned a _coup_?”

“It’s a possibility, is it not? The way things were in King’s Landing, all of it was set up by Tyrion. The King, the Small Council. The Kingsguard. How many Lannister friends and sycophants were among them? Many.”

“I suppose so, but –”

“You know nothing of this?”

“I swear I did not.”

“You – you would tell me? After all, it matters little now.”

“Yes,” Addam said. “Tyrion was a sly little shit, I won’t discount the possibility. But if it was his intention, he told me nought of it.”

“You swear it?”

“I swear it. Brienne –”

Jaime heard Brienne let out a long, relieved breath. “Thank you,” she said.

“What made you think of this?” Addam asked then. “Did you see any proof?”

“I didn’t,” Brienne replied. “Truth be told it wasn’t my notion. It was Jaime’s.”

Addam scoffed. “Of course it was. I should have guessed.”

“He –”

“Lannisters! What brother do you know who would accuse another brother of planning a regicide and think it normal?”

Brienne laughed too. Jaime gritted his teeth.

“That is what I plan to do, though,” she said suddenly.

“What?” asked Addam.

She’d all but blurted it – Jaime could picture how flustered she would look right now. “You can’t change my mind.”

“All right,” said Addam.

There was a long silence. “I plan to kill the King.”

“You’re not serious!”

“I am. Bran the Broken needs to die, Addam.”

“What? How – how in all the hells would you even do that?”

“You – you can’t change my mind. I told you –”

“I’m not trying to change your mind,” said Addam. “I just want to know how you think you could do it.”

The question seemed to fluster Brienne – she stammered for a moment. “They couldn’t see us,” she said. “When I was with Jaime, when he was pulling me out of the pit. They couldn't see him or me, or Sapphire. Not at all. Not a single one of the Ravens, even close up.”

“So, what does that mean?” Addam asked.

“It means we can kill Bran,” she replied. “It means we can walk right up to that abomination and he won’t see us coming.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes! Not one of those Ravens glanced in our direction.”

“But … that doesn’t mean anything. All that means is that Bran couldn’t see Jaime through the eyes of his Ravens from King’s Landing to the Westerlands.”

“So?”

“Does that mean he won’t be able to see him with his own two eyes?”

“I –”

“Does it mean no one in the city can see him either? Every goldcloak, every guard you’d need to get by?”

“I don’t know.”

“No, you don’t. None of us does.”

Brienne made no response.

“And … when Jaime moves, the Black Hole moves with him. Tyrion told me that, he told me Bran noticed it started in King’s Landing on the day the Dragon Queen burned it all. That he noticed it moved to the Westerlands. When I took him to the farm.” 

“What does that mean?”

“When it moves again, the King would know he’s coming, or that something is, at least, even if he doesn’t exactly understand that it’s Jaime. He made a mistake sending Ravens last time; he wouldn’t be so stupid twice. He’d get someone who could see.”

“I need your help. I need to make plans, I need to get fit, get in shape again.”

Addam sighed. “Brienne …”

“No! Addam, you saw what he did, you saw it in the capital too.”

“I did.”

“You think someone like that should sit the throne?”

“No, but –”

“But _what_?”

“I didn’t think the Dragon Queen should, either. Nor Cersei or Tommen or Joffrey. Robert was a pathetic excuse for a King, and Aerys …”

“What are you saying?”

“All of them were responsible for deaths. Wars. It’s what Kings are. It’s what they do.”

“So we should just _accept_ it?”

“No, of course not. But we don’t have an army to march on the capital. No banners to call or even a solid plan. It’s a fool’s errand, Brienne.”

“So what should we do? Stay and hide?”

“Would that be such a bad thing? For Sapphire …. For – for _us_ , maybe?”

Brienne didn’t speak. Jaime held his breath.

“If I thought we were safe, I’d agree with you,” she said eventually. Her voice was low and sweet and soft. A voice Jaime almost remembered. He could almost feel her hands on his face, her breath on his skin. Almost. “But Bran will come for us if we don’t go for him; you know he will. Living in fear is no life – I can’t … I can’t do what I had to do at the farm again, I can’t watch people die, I can’t run into another burning building to save my child. I can’t kill people that monster has twisted.”

Jaime _felt_ her. He lifted his hand to hold hers to his cheek, but of course, it wasn’t him she was holding.

Before he could stop himself, he stepped out from behind the lean-to. Brienne did have her hands on Addam’s face, and her expression was every bit as tender as he had imagined. It made him ache.

“She’s right,” he said.

Brienne and Addam both jumped. She let him go. 

“We’re the only ones who can do this.” Jaime looked from Brienne to Addam and back again. “I don’t wish to do this either, but I’m the Black Hole, yes? That means we’re the only ones with a chance in all the seven hells.”

Addam sighed. “Jaime, that doesn’t mean –”

“It _does_. It might be terrible, it might be treasonous and dishonourable and dangerous and foolhardy. It might all go horribly wrong, and our heads might end up on spikes beside my brother’s. But … we have the only chance, and we have to take it and damn the consequences.”

He looked at them both. Lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. “That’s what Kingslayers do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many apologies for taking a little longer to get this chapter out. I've not been well this week (thankfully not Miss Rona) and consequently needed to do a lot of rewrites to make it make sense! Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who sent me comments and messages for the last chapter, they were great fun as always.
> 
> For those of you who missed it on Twitter, I have decided to add another 12 chapter part after this one too, called "Us Without Each Other" where we will be alternating between Jaime and Brienne's POVs to resolve everything here. I hope you will stick it out for the duration, I'm very excited by it! If you want to get updates on this and teasers of upcoming chapters, I hope you will consider following me on Twitter [@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister)
> 
> A big cheer for CaptainTarthister this chapter, too, for helping me sort out a myriad of issues herein and for being my fave. 
> 
> Shout out to a very kind reader who continues to update the awesome [Jaime Without Brienne playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3LmWk4CW3argNpmnYwy7M2). Please check this out, it's so cool!
> 
> Hopefully back soon with chapter 8!


	8. Plum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three weeks after Addam's return.

Jaime sang.

It was an old song, one he remembered men in the yards of Casterly Rock singing when he was a boy. A song he didn’t know the name of, but apparently one that every peasant in the Westerlands knew.

He sang as he sat at the table in the garden of Weslar and Kiren’s hut, kneading the dough for this evening’s bread. Weslar, skinning the rabbits, and Kiren, peeling the carrots, sang too, as did their two young boys playing in the snow. Sapphire toddled beside the boys, trying to keep up, shouting nonsense along with their singing.

Jaime watched his daughter as he sang and pounded the dough into the floured tabletop, working it with the heel of his hand before turning it upside down to pound it again.

She had become so much better at walking since taking her first steps near three weeks ago. The speed of it had taken Jaime’s breath away – her desire to keep up with Tobas and Dravor had spurred Sapphire on to the point where she was near running along behind them already.

The three of them were as siblings really, Jaime thought. Sapphire wore clothes the two boys had grown out of, shared their toys and squabbled over them too. She was as grubby as they were; snot-nosed and muddy-cheeked and about as far from the child of two highborn parents as one could possibly get. It was all but impossible to imagine her togged up in silks and velvet now.

The song finished on a low note, and Weslar did what he always did, dropping his voice into an intense bass that made the children roar with laughter.

Jaime envied him. That ability to be unselfconsciously silly, unselfconsciously happy, was something he had never known. Lannisters could never be figures of fun. Lannisters were never even _acquainted_ with fun.

He saw the smile on his daughter’s face, saw the joy in her eyes as she ran with the boys. He envied her, too. For all the ignoble circumstances surrounding Sapphire’s conception and birth, she had never known anything but love. Brienne had done well.

Several songs later, however, Sapphire began to tire, finally tripping over in the snow and dissolving into miserable wails at her cold wet hands. Jaime put his dough in the bowl and covered it, getting up to pick her up and brush the snow from her hands and knees.

“Time for her nap?” asked Kiren with a fond smile. She wiped Sapphire’s tears with her apron and took Jaime’s dough indoors to prove by the fire a while.

“I think it _is_ ,” Jaime told Sapphire as she sniffled against his neck. “We had best find mother for some milk and cuddles.”

Tobas and Dravor waved their goodbyes to Sapphire and Jaime set off through the trees towards their own hut.

Brienne, he knew, would not be there. Most like she would be off in the woods with Addam, Nira and Alara, training and drilling. The four of them had found a secluded clearing downriver a way, and they had been spending most of the daylight hours there, swinging swords, cleaning armour and making plans for their trip to the capital.

Sapphire had worn herself out so much in Weslar’s garden that she had already fallen fast asleep on his shoulder by the time Jaime got her home. He took her indoors, shook the snow off Addam’s fancy grey boots and tucked his babe tenderly under the furs, mud and all. There would be time for a wash and a change of clothes when she woke up.

Jaime put another couple of logs on the fire, smiling in satisfaction as they caught, the heat circulating around the room. He tidied the hut a little, putting Sapphire’s toys away, cleaning up Brienne’s clothes and putting the dirty napkins in the pail for washing when the babe woke.

He heard voices outside – probably Brienne and the others returning from training, though it was earlier than usual. He heard laughter and the clang of armour and swords and sighed – they weren’t exactly being discreet.

Peering through the window, he saw the two handmaids, unbuckling each other’s pauldrons and chatting while they did it. He couldn’t hear what the women were saying over the crackle of the fire, but they were laughing. Wiping sweat from their brows, drinking from waterskins. Just like squires after training. Excited, thrilled from the spar, full of energy and fun. Jaime missed that feeling so palpably it hurt.

He craned his neck to see if Brienne was anywhere nearby, but he couldn’t see her. Addam neither.

Fine. Jaime picked up the napkin bucket, balanced it over his stumped arm and went out of the hut.

The laughter stopped at once – they hadn’t realised he was here. The short girl – Nira – looked away. She worked on the buckle of her breastplate. The mouthy redhead looked right at him.

“Sapphire’s asleep,” he said. “Could you keep an eye on her until Brienne gets back? In case she wakes? I have to clean these napkins.”

Nira nodded, all but curtseying. “Of course, my Lord,” she said.

Alara glared at her. “You don’t have to ‘my lord’ him now. He’s not lord of anything but this hut.”

Jaime scoffed; she thought that bothered him? “Thank you,” he said to Nira. Turned away to head for the river and his scrubbing rock.

“She won’t be back,” Alara called after him. “She’s getting a good seeing-to.”

Jaime closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Turned back to her. “What?”

“They wanted to practice a little bit more. _By themselves_. Bet he’s showing her _all_ his best sword-thrusts, don’t you?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“It’s _yours_ though, isn’t it. You look _very_ concerned, Ser. You worried he’s got a bigger cock?”

“Alara …” said Nira.

Jaime took another breath. Tried to listen to the rustling of the leaves in the trees, tried to let the sound calm him. Take him away.

“She might be a while,” Alara continued. “I hear he lasts a lot longer than you.”

“Wh-what?” The trees were silent. The world was silent. Even his heart wasn’t beating.

“She told us,” said Alara with an airy grin. “She told us all about your little problem lasting all of five heartbeats before you pop your cork.”

Jaime wanted his golden hand.

A strange thought – he didn’t yearn for his right hand back, or even a sword to wield in it. He wanted his golden hand to strike the words out of her mouth, to break the teeth that spilt them.

“Fuck you,” he said instead. Turned his back and marched as fast as his cane could let him towards the river.

Fuck her, and fuck Brienne, too. He was _shaking_. Sick to his stomach. Light-headed and dry-mouthed.

He dropped the bucket and sat on the rock. Buried his face in his hand. She - she’d told them?

Brienne had told her fucking handmaids, laughed with them, told them how he’d had trouble keeping his control in bed with her. She had, there was no way around it. She _had_.

Why? Had she been _so_ disappointed? Had it been _so_ terrible? Something to laugh at, to ridicule? He’d thought it was a problem they had overcome – Brienne had never expressed any sort of frustration or annoyance with him at the time. She’d stopped and started patiently and without complaint, whispered reassurances to his apologies when he hadn’t been able to contain himself. And aside from the first couple of times, when everything was new and embarrassing and awkward as all the hells, she had never left their bed unsatisfied. He’d made sure of that. It had been _important_ to him.

In return, she had been as Brienne had _always_ been – kind. Understanding. Loving. Not the sort of woman who would gossip and giggle with handmaids about his shortcomings.

After all, he had not gossiped about her. Not even with his brother – when Tyrion had asked him to describe Brienne’s cunt, he had refused. Been horrified. Of course he had.

What happened between a man and a woman beneath the furs was private. Vulnerable. Not something to discuss with one’s gobby handmaid.

He got to his feet. Perhaps he should do it, too? Perhaps he should have a heart-to-heart with Weslar and tell him how loud Brienne was in bed? Maybe they could drink to how stiff and scared she’d been when he’d taken her maidenhead? How unpracticed and clumsy her kisses had been. Were those things perfectly fine to share with friends too?

He didn’t go to Weslar, though.

Jaime tried to tell himself he wasn’t doing it, that he was just going for a walk to clear his head, to listen to the river and the wind in the trees, but he knew he wasn’t.

He was headed for the clearing, where Addam Marbrand was no doubt between Brienne’s legs.

Were they doing it against a tree, he wondered? On the ground – had they brought a blanket? Would Brienne be on top, riding him like a prized stallion? Or would it be Addam mounting her, both her hands on his hairy arse as he thrust? Would they be naked, would they be kissing? Would they be fucking like a pair of dogs, sweaty from their sparring, skin slapping on skin and the trees filled with the sound of urgent grunting?

Fuck everything, Jaime wanted to _watch._ He wanted the sight to destroy him, kill his love for her, make him _hate_ her as he should have hated Cersei. He wanted the sight of Brienne with Addam, of Brienne without Jaime, to set him fucking _free_.

He could hear her already, her voice through the trees. Groaning – gasping, hissing a breath between her teeth.

Did Addam have his mouth on her, his tongue inside her? Or was it his cock that made her feel that way?

He crept through the trees, closer and closer. They were on the ground – he could see Sunchaser’s blanket. Brienne’s hand, clutching it.

“There?” Addam’s voice, a low whisper.

“A little lower,” replied Brienne between gasps.

Jaime peered between the trees.

Oh.

Brienne and Addam weren’t fucking. They were both fully dressed, albeit with armour discarded. They looked as though they may have been kissing – Brienne’s mouth was a little pink and Addam’s tunic was partly unlaced. They were in each other’s arms, but they were just … just cuddling.

Addam’s hand was on Brienne’s arse, but he wasn’t fondling her. He was rubbing her, the heel of his hand kneading the muscle, right where she got sore since she broke her pelvis. Brienne was groaning because of _that_.

“Better?” Addam asked.

Brienne sighed. “Much.”

“You’ll get stronger,” he said. “Every day, a little more.”

She nodded and put her head on his chest. “I feel it already. It’s all coming back.”

Addam’s lips quirked upwards. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I noticed,” he said.

Jaime fled.

His head was a mess – pain, white, slices of thoughts cutting through him. The scar on his scalp pulsed. Dark black, green leaves, red leaves, stark empty branches. The dappled sunlight flashing through him and over him.

Everything burned. Red fire. Green fire. Jaime tore through the woods as fast as he could, as fast as his legs would let him.

Brienne could do it.

She _could_. Brienne could let go of him, she could have feelings for another man. She wasn’t wound around Jaime, root and stem, the way he had been with Cersei, the way he now was with her.

Brienne was _free_.

Jaime wanted to be free. He wanted to love like a normal man, like Addam, like Weslar. He wanted his feelings to lead somewhere simple and warm and as wonderful as that hug. He wanted to be the one rubbing Brienne’s arse when she got sore, telling her how much she was improving.

Why couldn’t he have that?

It was Cersei’s fault. She’d captured him, kept him, stunted, in a cage. Warped his view of love until it only existed in her image. When he’d finally seen it, it had been far too late.

He found himself back at the hut. Brienne’s handmaids were nowhere to be seen, but as he drew closer, he could hear their voices, talking inside. No matter. He didn’t want to see _them_.

He made his way around the back of the hut and scrambled into the carriage. Wild and fevered. Scrabbled about on the floor, trying to find purchase for his fingers on the underside of the bench. There was a loose panel – he’d found it not long after they had arrived at the hut. Used it to stash some things he didn’t want any of their neighbours to find.

He yanked it right off now, breaking it beyond his ability to repair. Threw it aside.

Inside, in the space beneath the seat, the remains of the poppymilk. The brown glass bottle caught the noonday sun, made it look rich and warm and beautiful. He thought how good it had once felt to have it in his life. The promise of oblivion at the end of the day, the chance to go away somewhere he felt warm and safe and loved. The last place he still had Cersei.

It didn’t even tempt him slightly.

Instead, he reached for Addam’s purse. It was a grey leather pouch stuffed with gold – a rich man’s coin that would have scared Weslar silly if he’d known about it. Now it didn’t matter.

Jaime crammed the purse into his pocket and got to his feet to lift Sunchaser’s saddle from its hook.

The thing was heavy and unwieldy, awkward to carry, but he managed. He made it all the way from the carriage to the lean-to without any more than stumbling. _He_ was improving, too.

Sunchaser regarded him with the usual amount of disdain, but of course, did not protest at being saddled and bridled.

Even with the set of steps Weslar had made top help him, it took Jaime three attempts to throw himself on the horse’s back and several minutes of trying to get his frustrating, unresponsive legs to cooperate enough to set his feet in the stirrups. Usually, he had Weslar to help with this, but …

He wrapped the reins about his hand and wrist and rode away.

It took him little more than an hour to arrive in Ashemark, avoiding the main thoroughfare and doubling back to make sure he was not being watched or followed. The market was not on, and the streets were quiet – some holy day or another he seemed to recall Weslar saying. Jaime had never been one for religion at the best of times, but now all that seemed as distant and forgotten as Casterly Rock.

Most shops were closed as well, but of course, there was one business that did a roaring trade no matter what else went on in the world. That was where Jaime headed.

The Ashemark brothel was informally called The Silken Ferret – rumour had it that there had once been an inn by the name of The Ferret on the site, but the owner found he made better money leasing it to whores and the name was perverted by local wags.

Jaime was quite familiar with the place – it had been one of a few in the Westerlands he had been tasked with collecting Tyrion from over the years.

He stopped outside, sweating. Heart in his mouth. Changed his mind and walked Sunchaser past instead. Turned the corner at the end of the street and then turned back again. Stopped outside again. Then, calling himself a fool and a craven, he slid from the saddle and lashed Sunchaser to the posts in front.

He was doing this.

Why should he not? He was a free man – he owed no one his loyalty or his cock. It was his to fuck with as he pleased, why should he not feel the pleasure of a willing woman’s cunt as other men did?

He hesitated for a heartbeat at the door but went in anyway. Jaime Lannister was no craven; he was a normal man. He could be. He just needed to break Cersei’s spell.

The lights were low inside, the windows artfully draped with silks and embroidered linens to keep the sun out and create a hazy, diffused sort of light that felt unreal. Like a fantasy.

There were a couple of men in here already, a fat man in fine clothes who had a woman on each knee, and a man with one leg and a burned face who had the haunted eyes of a soldier. Jaime hung his head and kept the hood of his cloak up. He could have commanded that man in battle. His father could have known the fat man. Most like he did.

“Hello, stranger,” purred a voice from next to him. Jaime started.

A woman stood there, a barefoot Summer Islander dressed in a diaphanous silk dress, a warm smile on her face.

Jaime didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say.

“I’m Hozanda,” she said without missing a beat. Not the first time she had dealt with a frightened, tongue-tied fool, no doubt. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No,” Jaime said. “I’m – I’m here for –”

“Of course,” Hozanda said with a smile. “But sometimes a drink can help you relax.”

“Water?” asked Jaime. “No ale. No wine. Please.”

“Anything you want.” She beckoned to another woman, a slim brunette with a necklace that led the eye right into her cleavage. “Fetch a glass of water. For –?”

“For?”

“Your name. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“My name’s Addam,” Jaime said.

Hozanda nodded. “For Addam.”

The brunette went away and came back with a glass of cloudy well-water that was probably more dangerous than the ale. Jaime sipped it in silence, Hozanda still at his side.

“Do you like what you see?” she asked.

“Uh, yes? Yes – it’s all lovely. Very lovely.”

“That’s good.”

“I’ve never done this before.”

She nodded – this was clearly not a surprise. “There’s a first time for everyone. What are you looking for?”

“Sex,” Jaime said. “With someone I don’t love.”

Hozanda’s mouth quirked upwards. “Well, that should be easy enough.” She waved a hand about the room. “Which of these girls would you like?”

“Oh. I – uh …” He was meant to choose? “I don’t know.”

“Perhaps I can help. What do you like in a woman?”

Jaime opened his mouth to reply but realised his only answers were personality traits. _Strength._ _Courage. Passion_. Not something he could choose from the off in a whorehouse.

He looked at each of the women in turn, hoping that looking at them would answer that question for him. Did any of them stand out? Did he feel attracted to any of them? Did he desire any of them?

“What kind of teats do you prefer?” Hozanda prompted when he hadn’t spoken for a while. “Big ones, small ones? We could start there?”

Jaime’s skin crawled at the question. He squirmed in place, screwing up his brow. It was so intimate, so personal. Men bragged of things like this, men like Robert Baratheon, men like his brother. Talked of women’s bodies as if they were a thing independent of the people inside. Jaime had never been able to do that.

Perhaps that was how to be a normal man? Perhaps that stopped you getting too entangled, too obsessed. Too in love. Perhaps he should try it.

He gave the question some thought – what kind of teats _did_ he like? He’d liked Cersei’s obviously. Brienne’s too, very much. But they were very different from each other – Cersei’s heavy and round, Brienne’s small and pointy. He tried to imagine those teats on another woman, though, and it didn’t work. He’d liked the teats because he’d liked the woman.

“Big ones,” he lied. Probably best if he went for someone unlike Brienne. Not that he was likely to find a huge, scowling, gentle-handed warrior woman working in a brothel.

He turned to look at Hozanda. She was _very_ unlike Brienne, actually – petite and curvaceous, dark and pretty. Perhaps she was a good choice? Many of the others were obviously Westerlanders anyway. He didn’t want to fuck someone with golden hair.

“How about you?” he asked. “Would you – I mean … are you –”

“Yes,” she replied with a pleased nod.

“Good. Then – _you_. Please.”

“Of course, Addam.”

Jaime kept his head low as she took him and his fetid glass of water through the room and off into one of the bedrooms. It was quite lovely in here – he’d always remembered it being a very sordid, squalid sort of place when Tyrion was a frequenter, but perhaps things had changed. Or _he_ had.

Perhaps this would not be so difficult after all.

“What should I do?” he asked once she’d closed the door.

“Whatever you’d like,” she said in a soft voice.

He thought he should probably take his clothes off. He reached for the laces on his tunic. “Please don’t help me,” he told Hozanda. “I have only one hand, so I might struggle. But please – don’t help me.”

“I understand,” she replied. She walked around the room, blowing out a few of the candles. He pulled his tunic off and sat on the bed to kick off Addam’s boots. His hand shook.

“Are you certain you don’t want a drink?” she asked. There was a vague note of sympathy in her eye as her gaze wandered over his broken body. He didn’t want that.

“No,” he said sharply. “I don’t drink.”

“Should I undress?”

“If it pleases you.”

“Does it please you?”

“It would make things easier I suppose.”

He stood to push down his breeches and smallclothes as she shrugged out of her whisper of a dress. His palm started to sweat. He got back onto the bed. Reclined on the pillows.

Hozanda came closer, a hand meandering slowly over her own teats. Lower. Jaime forced himself to watch.

“Like that?” she whispered, throwing a knee over his legs so she straddled him on the bed. “With me above you?”

Jaime shrugged. It seemed a little premature to be discussing positions – his cock had yet to respond to the situation.

Hozanda glanced down at it, lying flaccid across his thigh. “Would you like me to –”

“I’ll do it,” Jaime grunted. He wrapped his fingers about his manhood, toyed with the skin a little, moving it up and down on his shaft. Hozanda watched, arching her back in a way that made her teats more prominent, her fingers circling her nipples now. Was that supposed to be arousing?

It wasn’t working.

Jaime closed his eyes and sped up the movements of his hand. Tried to think of something erotic. He didn’t want to think of Brienne – forced every thought of her from his mind. Cersei too – though thoughts of her just made him feel sick these days.

What did other men think of when they tugged their cocks? Disembodied teats and cunts most like – not smiles and hands and warm winter sun dazzling in astonishing blue eyes.

“Would my mouth help?”

Jaime’s eyes flew open. “What?”

“My mouth?” asked Hozanda gently. “I could –“

“No,” he said. Took his hand off his cock and watched it flop back to his thigh. “It’s not going to work.”

“It might.”

“No. I – am not …”

“It’s worked for a lot of men like you.”

Jaime scoffed. “There are no men like me.”

There truly weren’t. No Lannisters. No sister-fuckers. No obsessive _things-I-do-for-love_ rs.

“I can’t do this,” he sighed.

Her fingers brushed the hair on his chest. “Give it some time, Addam. Nerves can be difficult.”

A short bark of laughter escaped from his throat. “No,” he said again. “It’s not nerves.”

It was who he _was_. There was never any escape from _that_.

He sat up, and she got off him, sitting on the bed with her legs folded beneath her. He rooted around on the floor for his clothes.

“You’re leaving?”

“I’ll still pay you,” he said. “Of course.”

She was silent then, pulling her own dress back on.

He fished around in Addam’s purse and gave her a couple of dragons – far in excess of what a whore would normally earn for lying with a man. She nodded her thanks.

“We’re always here if you change your mind,” she said as she stowed the coin somewhere in her dress.

“I know,” he said.

Dressed, he fled the brothel with his head down and the hood of his cloak up. Outside, it was snowing, and the sun was going down. Sunchaser gave Jaime a look of very moralistic judgement.

“You can shut up,” he told the horse. “I didn’t do it, all right? Even my cock hates me.”

Of course, in his haste to get here, Jaime had forgotten the logistics of getting up onto Sunchaser’s back without the steps they’d made. After a couple of aborted attempts and a painful fall onto his arse, he gave up with a curse, instead leading Sunchaser out of town on foot.

In the woods, it was slow going in the blizzard – feeling his way through the trees in the dark with his cane, not truly sure he was headed in the right direction. Sunchaser didn’t hesitate, though – he knew his way home.

By the time Jaime heard the river in the distance, it was full dark, and he shivered endlessly beneath his cloak. Brienne would be asleep, he thought. Sapphire too, the pair of them curled under the furs, the light from the fire flickering over them as they snored. He would warm himself by the fire, perhaps make himself some porridge to quiet his rumbling belly, eat it while he watched his family.

Then – coming towards him – a torch.

Jaime’s heart leapt into his mouth – a torch! Was it the king’s men? Had he somehow got too far from the huts, and they had come for them in his absence? But then he heard someone call his name.

“Jaime!” It was Addam. He rushed up to him through the trees, his face a picture of naked relief. “Thank the gods, where have you been?”

“Where – what?!”

“We’ve been looking for you for hours – the girls said you went to the river.”

“I – I went for a ride.”

Addam looked from Jaime to Sunchaser, confusion all over his face.

“I fell off,” Jaime told him. “I can show you the bruise on my arse if you like?”

“I’ll take your word on that,” Addam said with a grimace. He turned to shout over his shoulder. “Brienne!”

Brienne rushed forward, Sapphire in her arms. Her eyes went wide when she saw him, and she all but barrelled into him, grabbing him around the neck and pulling him into her arms. Her breath shuddered in his ear – he realised that she was _crying_.

“Brienne?”

“I thought you _dead_!” she sobbed. She pulled away and shoved Jaime in the chest, her face red, and her eyes wet. “Nira and Alara said you had gone to wash the napkins – we found your brush and your bucket but – I thought you had fallen into the river!”

“No, I – I needed a ride,” he said. “I’m sorry. I had to …”

“You didn’t tell anyone where you’d gone! I thought you were dead!”

“I took Sunchaser.”

“Yes, but –”

Oh. Belatedly, Jaime realised she hadn’t truly thought him dead. She’d thought him gone. Thought he’d left without saying goodbye. Again.

He looked at his boots. “I missed dinner. I did not realise the hour had grown so late … I’m sorry.”

She let out another desperate sob. Addam looked rather sadly at her and then back at Jaime. “You must be cold,” he said. “Let’s get you back.”

He took Sunchaser’s bridle from Jaime’s hand and led the horse ahead. Brienne walked with Jaime, Sapphire nestled against her in a blanket, gazing at her father with sleepy eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

Brienne sniffed. “I thought you’d –”

The hut came into view, the warm glow of the firelight orange through the windows. Addam led Sunchaser to the lean-to, promising he would get the saddle off and brush and feed him. Brienne took Jaime inside, warmed him some rabbit stew and sat beside him while he ate it by the fire. She undid her tunic to let Sapphire suckle herself to sleep. She sniffed periodically, her eyes still wet with tears.

Addam came in from the lean-to, washed his hands in the washbowl. He cut Jaime a chunk of bread and hung his cloak to dry by the fire. Fetched a blanket for Brienne and put it over her shoulders. Wiped her tears from her face with his thumb.

“I’ll head back, or the girls will be out searching for _me_ ,” he said in a low voice, so as not to wake Sapphire.

Brienne nodded and leaned up to accept a tender kiss from him. He smiled at her.

“Sleep well,” he said. “And you, Jaime.”

Jaime nodded, chewing his bread.

Addam left, and there was just the wood crackling in the fire, the wind in the trees outside.

“I’m sorry, too,” blurted Brienne. She lay Sapphire in the middle of the bed, between two pillows, so she didn’t roll off in her sleep.

“What – what for?”

“Alara. She told me what she said to you.”

“Oh.”

“She’s protective of me. Or she tries to be. But she’s not very subtle. Nor does she understand.” Brienne reached for him. Sitting beside him on the bed to cup his face in her hands. “Things have been complicated and – I’ve been hurt, and I’m sorry.”

“She’s right,” he blurted.

“No. She –”

“She wants you to be happy.”

“I know.”

“He’s a good man. She’s right about that, too.”

“What?”

“Addam. He’d make you happy. You should –”

Brienne shook her head. “Jaime –”

“No. You deserve that. Someone to think of you, to think about what you need.”

He took hold of the hand that touched his face. Rubbed her knuckles with his thumb. Back and forth. She was so close he could taste her breath. See the moisture on her lip where she had bitten it.

He pressed his lips to the wrinkle in the middle of her eyebrows. Pulled back and smiled at her. “You deserve to be loved by a man who knows what love is.”

Brienne had her eyes closed. Had her teeth on her lip.

“I know,” she whispered. And then she kissed him.

Not frantically, not passionately, not that crazed mash of lips and teeth it had been before. But a slow, sweet, melding of their mouths, then breath, then tongues. Her thumbs in his beard, caressing his cheeks, his arms around her back, holding her close.

They broke apart and looked at one another.

“Jaime,” she whispered.

He smiled. “It’s fine. Don’t say anything.”

“But –”

“Shhh. It doesn’t matter. It’s just the kiss goodbye I never gave you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thank you to everyone still reading - this damn story is getting more and more heartwrenching to write, so god alone knows how there's still anyone reading it! Thanks so much for the consistently lovely support, messages, comments and discussion. It's been so much fun and it's made all this lockdown business infinitely better. 
> 
> An extra big shoutout to ma bestie CaptainTarthister this week. She talked me down from a BIG ledge this chapter when I had a crazy notion that would have pushed this right over the edge into probable insanity. Thanks to her for her reason and her cool head under pressure of my nonsense!
> 
> A reminder to check out the brilliant [Jaime Without Brienne playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3LmWk4CW3argNpmnYwy7M2) compiled and updated every chapter by a very lovely reader. She's captured the mood so perfectly!
> 
> As always, if you'd like updates, teasers, or just to see me rant about the shitness of season 8, please consider following me on my Twitter [@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister). 
> 
> See you next time for chapter 9!


	9. Indigo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group start to make plans.

Brienne and Addam fetched the table. Nira and Alara did the chairs.

Jaime hung back against the wall of the hut, Sapphire grizzling at his feet. Nagging to be picked up. He’d only just put her down – she was in one of those moods today where all she wanted was what she didn’t have.

Brienne tossed a sympathetic look Jaime’s way – they were both red-eyed and tired. Possibly Sapphire was teething again? She hadn’t slept well last night, and it seemed like all she’d done since the sun came up was cry.

Jaime picked the babe up and took his seat at the table. Brienne took the chair beside him, and Sapphire immediately reached for her with a wail.

Brienne sighed and took her – Sapphire pulled at her tunic and then at her hair. Stood up on her lap to smack her face between both hands.

“Not nice!” Brienne warned her, folding her little legs to sit her back on her lap. Sapphire cried even harder and tried to throw herself from her mother’s lap – she was in a foul temper indeed.

Jaime took her back and stood with her, bouncing her on his shoulder while Addam spread his map out on the table. Brienne put some stones at the corners to hold it down.

“So where’s this secret entrance?” asked Addam.

Jaime leaned over the table, still jiggling Sapphire on his hip as she pulled his beard. He squinted at the map, trying to remember. So much about that day was still very hazy. “The beach …” he said. “There was an overhang, it looked like a cave almost. One of the towers from the Keep fell behind me as I found it – it must be this beach here somewhere.” He tapped the map with his finger.

“That beach is miles long,” Addam complained. “Can’t you be more specific? Maybe … what tower fell from the Keep? In what direction?”

Jaime shrugged. “I don’t know. I – I … I didn’t care at the time. I hadn’t anticipated living much longer.”

He caught Brienne’s eyes – they were huge and sad. He stung with regret – did the thought of his death still hurt her so? He almost apologised, but before he could open his mouth, she looked away and back to Addam.

Sapphire fussed to get down again, so Jaime placed her on her little feet in the snow. She toddled around the table to her mother and hugged her leg but refused the offer of being picked up. Still grizzling.

“I’m sure I’ll know it when we get there,” Jaime said.

Addam let out an exasperated breath. “What are we going to do if you don’t?”

Brienne pursed her lips. Addam shifted his gaze from Jaime to her. “ _This_ is your plan?”

“I hadn’t really made a plan yet,” Brienne said. “That’s what I was hoping to do now. So if you have any ideas –”

“I did have ideas, but you didn’t want to hear them.”

“I told you, I won’t run. I won’t be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, not here, not in Essos, not anywhere in the world. We won’t be safe.”

“We’ll be dead is what we’ll be.”

“Not if we do this properly. Come on, we’re all battle commanders, we’re all anointed knights. We should be able to come up with something.”

Addam put his hands over his face. Sapphire toddled around to him and tugged on the leg of his breeches. He looked down at her, and she put her arms up to him. He picked her up and held her against his chest. “You have any ideas, Ser Sapphire?” he asked with boop of her nose.

Brienne scoffed.

“So …” Addam continued. “Battle commanders, our best idea is that Jaime remembers where the secret entrance to the Keep is? Walking miles of beach in the dark in the hope that it comes back to him. If he does find it, where does the entrance lead?”

“The basement,” Brienne said.

“Didn’t the basement collapse?” asked Addam. Sapphire had hold of the laces of his tunic, tugging at them. “On Jaime’s head?”

Brienne shook her head. “A small part of the ceiling fell. It was cleaned up and repaired very soon after.”

“Very well. So, we’re in the basement,” Addam continued. “What do we do then?”

“We need to work out a way to get to the king’s bedchamber,” said Brienne. “So we can kill him.”

Addam let out a breath. “Where is the king’s bedchamber?”

Brienne leaned over and tapped the map with her finger, on the east side of the castle. “From the basement, we would use the staircase behind the kitchens. Cross through the night servants’ quarters and then the map room. Use the central staircase to get to the royal chambers. The standard protocol would be one Kingsguard outside his door at night. One Raven now, presumably. Who can’t see Jaime?”

“Yes, but Bran now knows that Ravens can’t see us. Surely he wouldn't trust his life to them?”

Sapphire wriggled to get out of Addam’s arms. He put her down on the tabletop, and she ran across the map in her wet shoes. Back to Jaime.

“If they can see us, then we’d have to fight them,” said Brienne. “I fancy our chances, there wouldn't be many.”

“But on the way from the basement … how many goldcloaks would we pass?” asked Addam. “How many knights? How many servants and cooks and kitchen porters? There are only _five_ of us.”

Jaime felt a pang of absurd gratitude that Addam had included him in the total.

“If we do it carefully and quietly …”

“What do you think we are, the Faceless Men? Not to mention that we have to bring bloody _Sapphire_ with us.”

Brienne sucked in a breath and drew herself to her full height, her eyes furious.

“I’m sorry,” said Addam. “I didn’t mean … you know what I mean.”

As if to illustrate, Sapphire was grizzling again now in Jaime’s arms.

“We can’t leave her behind,” Brienne reminded him. “Once Jaime moves, she’ll be unprotected. He could send any number of Ravens, any number of soldiers, right to her.”

“I understand. But this isn’t going to work.”

Brienne chewed her lip. “I know,” she said after a moment.

“Can’t we climb in through a window instead?” Alara chimed in. Up until now, she and Nira had been silent – neither had ever been to King’s Landing. “From above, maybe? The Little Lion brought me up to Casterly Rock once, you know. Stashed me in a room above his until sundown. He had a ladder … all concealed inside the window frame. I climbed down from my window to his. So his father didn’t know he had a visitor. Maybe we could climb down from above to the King?”

Jaime laughed. So much made sense suddenly. The mouthy redhead was one of Tyrion’s whores – he should have known there was no way she’d ever been trained as a handmaid. And how like Tyrion to think of something so brilliantly simple as a concealed ladder to bypass Casterly Rock’s gossiping guards and sycophants. He could almost see his little brother, grinning wickedly at the thought of getting one over on their father.

Brienne and Addam looked at each other. Both thinking.

“Who lives in the chambers above now?” asked Addam with a nervous glance at Jaime. They had been Cersei’s rooms.

“They were empty while I was a Kingsguard,” Brienne said. “They – they’re the Queen’s, traditionally.”

“Well, I would doubt Bran has taken a wife. Didn’t his own sister declare him impotent at the Kingsmoot?”

Brienne gritted her teeth, the way she always seemed to when anyone mentioned Sansa Stark. “Yes, she did.”

“It doesn’t change much, though, does it. Even if Jaime can climb safely down a ladder a hundred feet in the air, we’ll have the same set of problems getting to the Queen’s chambers as we would the King’s.”

They fell silent. Looking at the map. The shadows of the trees danced across it, across the outer walls, the Tower of the Hand. Across Maegor’s Holdfast, across the White Sword Tower.

“There’s a tunnel,” Jaime said. “A secret passageway in the walls.”

Brienne looked at him with huge eyes. He looked away.

“To the Queen’s chamber?” Addam asked.

Jaime nodded. “Right into the privy.”

Again, Sapphire wriggled to get down and started crying.

“Where does the tunnel start?” asked Brienne. She held out her arms and took the miserable babe back, bouncing her against her shoulder and rubbing her back. It was quite plain Sapphire was tired, though in this sort of mood Jaime knew she would fight it to the last.

“The wine cellar,” Jaime recalled. “The one beneath the stables – I would guess it was originally built so the Queen could escape if she needed to. It passes underground and then up into the walls.”

No one questioned what _he_ had used it for. Everyone knew.

Sapphire’s cries grew into wails, long and loud and high-pitched. Addam considered the map. Put his finger on the wine cellar. Screwed up his brow but didn’t say anything.

Brienne sat down, unlacing her tunic and wrapping Sapphire in her cloak to feed. She latched to her teat with a sad little snuffle. Rubbing her eye with a fist.

“We can take a break if she needs a nap,” Addam said softly. He looked as though he were making a conscious effort to keep his eyes on Brienne’s face. “We can think on this some more later.”

Jaime got to his feet, too, leaning on his cane. “I should check the traps,” he said. Weslar was late, he had taken Sunchaser to fetch Giddon from the town that morning, saying he would be back after breakfast.

“Might I accompany you?” Addam asked.

Jaime blinked in surprise – he had thought Addam would much prefer to stay at the hut and pretend he wasn’t watching Brienne’s teats while she suckled Sapphire. But he nodded.

“The help would be welcome.”

Addam nodded too and relaced his tunic where Sapphire had pulled it undone. Put his cloak and gloves on. The two of them went off into the woods in silence, surrounded by the rustle of the trees and the crunch of snow underfoot.

“Do you think she can be talked out of this?” Addam said after a moment. “You realise this is madness, don’t you?”

Jaime shrugged. “I don’t know, I think we have a chance.”

“With a cripple, two handmaids and a babe?”

Jaime laughed.

They’d reached the first trap – it had a rabbit in it, quite dead. Jaime bent to extricate it from the snare, struggling to get it loose with only one hand. Usually, Weslar did this part. Addam didn’t offer to help, so Jaime ended up stuffing it into his sack, snare and all.

Addam wasn’t really paying attention, Jaime noticed. He looked distracted, fidgety, almost.

“What’s amiss?” Jaime asked him with a sigh after two more rabbits. “Are you really so set on talking her out of it? You won’t, you know. She had to kill her own squire because Bran had turned him into a Raven. She won’t –”

“I need to ask you something,” Addam said.

“Oh?”

The other man took a deep breath. Scratched his beard. He looked reluctant.

“You might as well spit it out,” Jaime said. “I promise I’ll be discreet if that’s your worry?”

“It’s not. I –”

“Then what? Did you –”

“Did Brienne bed you?”

Jaime felt his eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “You know we have a child, yes? Did your Septa never explain to you how babes are made?”

Addam made a face. “You know what I mean. I mean since … since the farm. Since you’ve been here.”

Jaime straightened up on his cane. “What would make you ask that?”

“You’ve been alone. For near six moons. As a family, sharing a bed. I – I ...”

“We didn’t have much choice.”

“Your neighbours think she is your wife.”

“It was the simplest lie at the time.”

“So … you haven’t?”

Jaime felt uncomfortable. “You … you should speak to Brienne about this. It seems –”

“You _have_?!”

“No! No – we haven’t. But – this isn’t – you need to speak with _her._ I’m not – I shouldn’t be –”

Addam looked immensely relieved, Jaime noted. He all but sagged against the nearest tree.

“Have _you_?” Jaime asked. Unable to help himself. “Have you bedded her since you found us?”

Addam shook his head.

That surprised Jaime – they’d had plenty of opportunities. It certainly seemed as though the two handmaids were pushing them together.

“She’s injured,” Addam said. “And – and …” He trailed off, making a vague gesture with his hands. Jaime had no idea what he meant.

“We shouldn’t speak of this without her here,” Jaime said again. “She’d hate that.”

“You’re right,” Addam said.

He followed Jaime through the trees in silence, chewing his lip.

“Two more traps,” Jaime said. “We’ve been lucky today – not an empty one.”

“You think she’d wed me?”

“Wh – what?” Jaime fumbled the bag. Tripped over his cane and fell to the floor.

“I think I’m in love with her.”

Jaime gaped up at him from the ground, rubbing his sore knee. “It’s like that, is it?”

Addam’s brow furrowed. “You’re right. I should not be talking of this with you. You –”

“Things have changed between me and Brienne,” Jaime said. He pulled himself up to sit on a nearby fallen tree. Still rubbing his knee. The cold made it throb beneath his fingers. “They are … not as they were when we were still at the farm.”

Addam nodded. “You seem …”

“Well, I stopped drinking. Stopped taking milk of the poppy. Stopped … I stopped seeking refuge in the past. Cersei … she … that is, my relationship with her …. It cost me my life in every meaningful way. Because of that, I’ll never be the man I was meant to be.”

“Jaime –”

“No, tis true. Admitting it … after I’d lost my mind, my body, given up a woman I loved very much … it was … well, it was not easy. I was weak … near dead with it in truth. It was easier to hit out and push away than to admit how dead. But … now …”

“Brienne helped you.”

“No. Not directly. She – she’s mostly been very angry with me.”

Addam laughed.

“But being here – the hunting and the trapping and the washing of napkins. Caring for my daughter, caring for Brienne while she was hurt. Getting to know Weslar and Kiren, helping and contributing … there’s been no room for all that other shit.”

“Oh.” Addam looked sort of wistful about that. “And Brienne? She has been pleased by these changes you’ve made?”

“I think so. She’s been –”

“When you went missing. When she thought you dead, she was frantic. Near-hysterical. It made me wonder if the two of you had become lovers again.”

Jaime shook his head. “Most like she was worried for Sapphire. If I were to die, what would happen to the Black Hole that shields us from Bran the Broken?”

“Perhaps,” said Addam thoughtfully.

Jaime laughed. “Probably she was worried she might have to wash all those napkins by herself, too. That babe can shit for Westeros.”

He got back to his feet and tried a few steps to see how his knee felt. A little sore, but not too bad.

“Here. Let me take that bag for you,” said Addam. He still looked thoughtful as he slung the rabbits over his shoulder.

Jaime made his way through the whispering trees towards the next snare. Addam was still silent.

“You think she might wed you?” Jaime asked as they scrambled down into a hollow by the river.

Addam shrugged. “On paper, we are a reasonable match, are we not? House Tarth and House Marbrand are of comparable size and importance.”

“I suppose so.”

This snare was empty – it had been knocked over without being triggered. Jaime grunted and went to his knees to fix it.

“Though she is no longer heir to her house,” Addam mused. “And a warrior maid with a bastard child – my father may not be so thrilled. It was different when there was a decree from the Hand of the King.”

Jaime nodded. Lord Damon was not as fearsome as Lord Tywin had been, but Brienne would not be an ideal choice for the heir to a noble house.

Thanks to Jaime.

“That will hurt her,” Jaime said as he picked himself up and brushed snow from his breeches. “If your father rejects her.”

Addam nodded sadly. “Ah well, tis probably moot. I don’t suppose I am heir to Ashemark any more either – traitor to the crown that I am. And let’s face it, we will probably all be dead within a moon thanks to Brienne’s lackwitted plan.”

Jaime snorted. He pointed ahead to where the next trap was laid.

“Why did you not wed her?” Addam asked after a moment. “At Winterfell?”

Jaime looked at his boots and shrugged. “Cersei. Why else?”

Addam nodded. His eyes held something big and overwhelming that Jaime thought might be pity. He didn’t blame him – he was a pitiable fool, indeed. “So,” Addam continued. “You would not be … upset if I proposed marriage? You would not try to come between us?”

Jaime swallowed. The thought .. _hurt_ him. A physical pain that lanced through his chest, made him want to yell and curse and cross swords with Addam. But …

“I wouldn’t,” he said. “Brienne … deserves love. Uncomplicated love. If you can give that to her then … I would be happy to see it.”

He turned away and hung his head so that Addam couldn’t see the tears in his eyes. Held his breath so that he could not hear the sob forming in his throat.

Neither of them said much as they retrieved the last rabbit from the last trap. Jaime concentrated very hard on his surroundings, the hushed whisper of the trees, the soft breath of the wind in the leaves.

They walked back to the hut like that, Jaime trying to feel the calm of the forest, the peace he had here. He worried that he would cry when he saw Brienne, that the sight of her soft blue eyes and the tall, long shape of her would crack him utterly in half.

It was no more than he deserved, of course. He had broken her far harder.

But when they got back, something was happening. Weslar was there, holding Sunchaser by the bridle, talking animatedly with Brienne. His face was set in a deep, uncharacteristic frown. Addam’s eyes went nervously to Jaime.

“Weslar?” Jaime did not recognise the look on his friend’s face. It was dark. Troubled. He went to him, putting his hand on the big man’s forearm. “What – what’s amiss?”

“Giddon,” said Weslar.

“He’s back from the capital?”

Weslar nodded. “I picked him up where we’d arranged. Right where I always do. He made it there right at the right time, but …”

“But what?”

The big man’s face crumpled. “He’s not right.”

“How so?” asked Brienne.

“He’s – he’s _raving_. Keeps saying the same thing, again and again. Mayhaps he’s had a blow to the head? It’s like he’s stuck in the past.”

“In – in the past?” Jaime didn’t understand.

Weslar nodded. “Giddon – he was a household guard for Lord Tywin Lannister, did I never tell you this?”

Jaime went white. “Wh-what?”

Brienne’s mouth dropped open too. “When?” she asked. “How long ago?”

“Oh, _years_ ago,” Weslar said. “When Lady Joanna was alive and … up until Robert’s Rebellion.”

Jaime’s heart sank. Suddenly so much made sense. Giddon had always behaved strangely towards him, never been particularly friendly, nor … oh gods. He’d made Sapphire a bright red rattle, too. Called her a little lady.

He knew. He’d always known.

Brienne’s eyes found Jaime’s, her face the picture of naked terror. Addam too. Both of their faces full of questions.

Jaime couldn't answer them. He hadn’t recognised Giddon, not at all – the man was utterly unfamiliar. Perhaps he hadn’t been around the children much? Or – or maybe Jaime had never really paid much attention to the family guards. Not enough to remember their faces two decades later.

“He’s been to the capital,” said Brienne. “Outside –”

Jaime nodded. Outside the Black Hole. Giddon had taken the knowledge of who he was and walked right up to Bran’s doorstep.

“How is he raving?” Brienne asked. “What is he saying about his past?”

“I tried to put him in bed, but he just kept getting up. Saying it again and again – about Lord Tywin’s son – Ser Jaime Lannister.”

“Oh, Gods!” Brienne cried. “That – that doesn’t sound good.”

“We should see him,” Jaime said.

Brienne nodded and shouted for Nira and Alara to mind Sapphire, and Weslar led them through the trees, Addam too, following the river until they came to Giddon’s little hut. It was all-but silent here, even the movement of the trees seemed quiet and subdued.

Already they could hear Giddon talking inside as they approached. Speaking and then stopping, speaking and then stopping, the same every time, though they weren't close enough to hear individual words.

“Giddon?” asked Weslar tentatively as they approached the door. It was ajar. “Giddon, are you all right?”

He pushed his way inside. Jaime, Brienne and Addam followed.

Giddon was stood by his bed with his back to them, his head slumped forward. Hands hanging dead at his sides.

“He doesn’t look right either,” said Weslar. “Not one bit.”

Giddon swayed on his toes, his whole body rolling. They stepped further into the hut. Brienne in front of Jaime.

“Giddon,” she called. “It’s Brienne. And – and Jaime. Are you –”

But she was cut short as Giddon turned to face them.

They all gasped.

Weslar had the right of it – Giddon _wasn’t_ right. Not nearly right, in fact. His skin was sallow and grey, his hair half gone. His mouth hung open at a strange angle, almost as if his jaw was dislocated. Inside, his tongue lolled, grey and dead.

His eyes too – they seemed to fizz, going almost pure white for an instant and then swirling with black.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” said Addam. “He – he’s a Raven. He’s like a Raven, that’s what they –”

But Jaime wasn’t thinking Ravens. Giddon looked and moved like one of the thousand shambling corpses that had come on Winterfell during the Long Night. What had Bran Stark done to him?

“Jaime Lannister,” said Giddon. His voice was a flat, necrotic horror that scraped past the dry tissues of his throat. Brienne clutched at Jaime. Jaime clutched her back. “You wear a black cloak, but the trees are yours. Black trees, white trees. You’re something else now. The lion will bow to the raven, and together we will see what you will do for love.”

“You see?” said Weslar. “He’s said the same thing, over and over, ever since I picked him up. He’s not right, is he?”

Giddon had slumped again now, his mouth open and his limbs slack. Jaime couldn’t look away from him, from those swirling black and white eyes.

Then, abruptly, he lifted his head again. “Jaime Lannister,” he said again. “You wear a black cloak, but the trees are yours. Black trees, white trees. You’re something else now. The lion will bow to the raven, and together we will see what you will do for love.”

“What in all the hells does that mean?” asked Addam.

“It means we need to leave for King’s Landing,” Jaime whispered. “Today.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone for the fabulous comments on the last chapter. So sorry I didn't get around to replying to all of them, had one of those weeks! Hopefully, I'll be able to catch up this week. Please keep your comments coming, I do love to read your thoughts and ideas and theories, it's so much fun!
> 
> Shout out to CaptainTarthister for reading and helping me through the sticky patches ... and for coming up with the most brilliant line EVER. She rocks my world, she really does.
> 
> While you're here, don't forget to check out the amazing [Jaime Without Brienne playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3LmWk4CW3argNpmnYwy7M2), compiled and updated by a really amazing reader.
> 
> And also if you haven't already done so, please come and say hi to me on Twitter [@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister)
> 
> Until next time, my lovely friends!


	10. Prussian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey to King's Landing.

The road from Ashemark was hard and frozen, and the snow began almost as soon as they had left.

Jaime rode atop the carriage beside Addam, huddled in his cloak. Inside the carriage, he could hear Sapphire crying – no doubt she was fed up already. She was used to running and playing in the snow with Tobas and Dravor; being cooped up in a tiny carriage with three adults for hours at a time was going to be difficult.

Jaime too felt sick whenever he thought of the home they had just left. It was hard to believe he would not be climbing into that soft, lumpy bed tonight next to Sapphire and Brienne, falling asleep listening to them both snore. Hard to believe he would not be getting up in the morning to the fresh smell of the forest and making his journey down to the river to clean the dishes and the napkins.

He hadn’t wanted to leave. He had never had such a sense of home as he had while living in the hut. The thought near brought him to tears.

Brienne had cried, too – before they had left, she had gone out to check on Giddon and returned, weeping, to say that he had died. Jaime and Addam had helped prepare a pyre for him. She’d wrapped the body in some blankets, but it wasn’t until he had been helping her to lift it onto the pyre that he’d noticed Giddon’s head had been removed from his body. That Brienne wore her sword at her hip.

He looked at Brienne but had said nothing. It was the right thing to do – as the Black Hole moved away from here, Bran might have been able to control Giddon. He could have been a danger to their other neighbours.

Weslar had wept openly as the body burned, promised the dead man faithfully that he would bury his ashes in his beloved garden. It was awful – a sword twisting in Jaime’s guts. He had brought death and horror to these people – for the first time, he truly understood Brienne’s desire to kill Bran the Broken.

So Addam had ridden back to his mother’s house, found some old tents and blankets and whatever provisions he could. Jaime and Brienne had readied the carriage, and the handmaids had helped her into her armour.

Then they had gone, the two of them, to talk to Weslar and Kiren. Sat them down and spoke to them, introduced themselves properly for the first time.

That had been awful, too. The instant change in Weslar’s demeanour, the averted eyes and the way he had shrunk to be subordinate. The way he had called Jaime “milord”. Jaime had wanted to implore him not to, wanted to pull the man close and literally beg him. He was the same man, the same Jaime.

He wanted to tell Weslar he would be back, but he couldn’t do that, either. He knew he wouldn’t be coming back.

They rode away after a meagre midday meal of bread and cheese that none of them wanted.

Jaime didn’t look behind him as they rode away. He didn’t want to see the hut disappearing forever; he didn’t want to think about the past or the future.

Addam didn’t say very much. He held onto the reins of their two horses – Sunchaser and the black rounsey he had used to escape from the farm.

Addam being Addam, he had given the thing an extravagant name. _Venture_ seemed to Jaime to be more fit for a destrier or a courser, not the plump, plodding thing that was currently frustrating Sunchaser with its sluggish pace. If Jaime had been in better spirits, he might have laughed.

But he wasn’t, so he sat in silence instead, watching the thin, sad trees that lined the road go by one after the other, almost like an honour guard come to bid him farewell.

They had hoped they might make it to an inn by nightfall, but as the sun dipped below the horizon, they were still some hours away. Addam pulled the carriage off the road onto an old disused track, looking for a sheltered spot to erect the tents.

He’d acquired two – old battered things with more than a few patches. Jaime helped as best he could, but he wasn’t much use with one hand and ended up changing Sapphire’s napkin in the carriage while Brienne and the handmaids helped Addam.

Changed and dry, Sapphire whimpered sleepily against his neck, exhausted and overwhelmed by all that had happened today. Jaime knew how she felt – probably she just wanted home and bed. He cuddled her close and rocked her, softly singing the song that Weslar always sang with his boys.

She sniffled a little more and fell asleep, warm and snoring in the crook of his neck. Outside, the others were collecting firewood, the handmaids tying some snares to set up overnight. Jaime wrapped Sapphire in her blanket, suddenly having a miserable realisation that he would not be sleeping beside her tonight, for the first time in many moons.

Nor Brienne, either. With two tents, the only logical setup was he and Addam in one and the women and Sapphire in the other. Sharing a bed would not be proper any more.

Brienne interrupted his thoughts, coming into the carriage with a frown on her face that didn’t lift even when she saw Sapphire was asleep. She pulled the bags off the shelves, going through each one, her frown darkening further still.

“What are you looking for?” Jaime asked eventually, when she was going through the bags for the third time.

She gave him a strangely fearful look, but then shrugged. “Breeches,” she said. “Do we have any more?”

Jaime shook his head. Their clothing supply was minimal – Brienne, Addam and Jaime were all sharing the clothes Addam had packed in the carriage when he came to the farm.

Brienne cursed.

“What’s the matter?”

She dithered for a heartbeat, then opened her cloak. Lifted her leg and placed her boot on the bench. Jaime didn’t understand for a second, but then he saw. A dark stain between her legs. Down one thigh, too.

“Is that _blood_?”

She gave a curt nod. “Moonblood.”

“Oh.”

“It’s all but a year since I birthed Sapphire. And _this_ is the day it chooses to return.”

“That is some ill luck,” he agreed.

“What am I to do? I borrowed some smallclothes from Alara, but …”

“I can get those stains out,” he promised. “Tis no worse than Sapphire’s shit.”

“But what am I to do _now_?”

“Do Nira or Alara have any clothes?”

Brienne made a face. “ _Skirts_ ,” she said darkly.

Jaime almost laughed, but her expression was quite pitiable. “Here,” he said in a soft tone, passing Sapphire to her.

She took the babe with an expression of confusion, which only deepened as Jaime started to pull at the laces on his own breeches.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a whisper. For a moment, Jaime was reminded of the first time they lay together. That stupid moment when he had thought she had tired of his inability to say what he meant, when she’d pulled him to her by the laces on his tunic. Rough enough to get him instantly hard, to start tugging at her laces in return. That heart-stopping moment when he realised she was just being kind.

“Have mine,” he said. Shoving them down over his hips.

“What? What will you wear?”

“Yours.”

She made a face of horror. “Jaime, they’re covered in moonblood.”

He shrugged. “There’s no shame in blood on a man’s breeches; people would think I cut my leg. I’ll wash them out on the morrow with Sapphire’s napkins.”

She gaped at him.

He stood in his smallclothes, shivering. Holding the breeches out to Brienne. “Do you want them or not?”

She took them with an uncertain hand. Passed Sapphire back to him. She pulled her breeches off and pulled his on.

“Thank you,” she said as she took Sapphire back. Her eyes wide and her voice soft.

He shrugged. “It’s only moonblood.”

Addam had the fire going by the time they left the carriage, and was sorting out some of the food they had brought from the hut, passing portions of dried rabbit to the two women and then to Jaime.

Brienne took Sapphire into one of the tents and tucked her under the furs to sleep. Jaime watched her with another pang. How he wished he could be climbing in there beside them both tonight.

Instead, he chewed his rabbit and stared at the wood burning on the fire. It was almost hypnotic.

Brienne returned and sat between Jaime and Addam, wrapped in her cloak. They all ate in near silence. Addam watched her for a moment and then scooted closer to Brienne to put an arm beneath her cloak. Around her waist.

She smiled, and he leaned up to press a kiss to her face. More tender than Jaime had ever seen him with anything but his horses.

“Oh, I all but forgot,” Brienne said. “Weslar gave me some of his dandelion ale.”

She pulled out of Addam’s embrace and got up to root around in her saddlebags. She turned back with one of Weslar’s stoppered clay jugs. Addam fetched the cups and handed them out; Jaime refused with a wave of his hand. He’d already tried the stuff – once was enough for him.

Brienne poured a generous cup for each of the others, who all sniffed it warily.

“It tastes better than it smells,” Brienne told them as she sat back down. A little further from Addam than she had been.

Addam sipped his and made a face of disgust. “It really doesn’t,” he told her.

Alara coughed and spluttered – she’d taken a far bigger gulp than even Brienne. “It’s _horrible_ , Ser!”

“I’ll grant you, it’s an acquired taste,” Brienne grinned.

“It’s strong enough,” Addam said, trying some more.

“Weslar always said it would put hairs on your chest,” Jaime told him. Weslar would have loved this, he thought. Three new people to try his near-poisonous ale out on – Jaime could imagine his excited grin. How much he missed the big man already.

Alara drank some more and coughed again, gagging wildly. “Ser, how could you?” she laughed.

“I like it,” said Brienne. “It’s got guts.”

She drank some more and then filled her cup again. Held her hands out to the fire to warm them.

Jaime drew the hood of his cloak up and watched her, watched the firelight and the black shadows of the trees dance over her face, her hair all-but colourless. He watched her fingers – one set outstretched, the other wrapped around her cup, strong and delicate all at once.

Over her shoulder, he noticed Addam’s eyes on him, even as he sipped his dandelion ale. Watching him watch Brienne. Jaime looked away.

“I for one look forward to getting back to wine,” Addam said. “A nice glass over a nice meal. Watching the sun set over the river from my father’s solar.”

“That does sound good.” Brienne smiled. “I don’t miss wine so much, but I do miss a lot of things. Featherbeds. Taking a bath. Using a real privy.”

“I miss my friends,” said Nira sadly. “Having things to laugh about and talk about and jest about. I miss Darlyne. Bancey too.”

“Bancey was _fun_ ,” Alara agreed.

“She killed a man,” Brienne said. Her eyes were bright and wet in the firelight. “To save Sapphire. That night in the farmhouse – I found her dead, but she’d taken him with her. Shoved that poker of hers right through his neck.”

“Oh, Bancey,” Nira sighed. Her lower lip wobbled. “She was good with that poker.”

“She promised me,” Brienne said. “As I left, she promised me she’d defend Sapphire to her last breath, and she did. I had not thought to find such bravery, such valour, in a wet nurse.”

“You did a good job,” Addam said softly. “You taught all your women well.”

Brienne shook her head. “I had no need to teach them any more than swordplay. All of them, all my women, were as brave and honourable and determined as any man I’ve known.”

Both handmaids smiled. “Thank you, Ser,” said Nira.

Brienne smiled too. “In truth, I had never imagined I would see those qualities in women. All my life, I had thought myself something of an oddity for being as concerned with them as men are. I thought women, _real_ women – those not like me – had little idea of battle courage. But … I realise now that I had spent little time in the company of women before I lived at the farm. It was my ignorance at work.”

“You showed us, Ser,” said Nira in a whisper. “You inspired us.”

Jaime noticed her eyes glittering as she looked at Brienne, too. As full of the moon as Addam’s. As his own.

Alara lifted her cup in salute. “To Ser Brienne,” she charged. “And may she live to see her featherbed, her bath and her privy once again!”

Brienne laughed, but she raised her cup to drink to that, as did Nira and Addam. Jaime, with no drink, could not.

“What about you, Alara?” Brienne asked. “What do you miss? What do you want to get back to?”

“You know what I miss!” Alara said with a mischievous grin. “I miss bedding a man!”

“Well, of course,” said Addam with a roll of his eyes.

“You wouldn’t get it, Ser Ginger,” Alara teased. “You’ve never had the pleasure of a hot, willing cock inside you.”

Addam scoffed and drank more of his dandelion ale. “I can’t say that I have.”

“It’s _good_. When he’s going at it so hard you’re getting slammed into the bed, and all you can think about is cock, cock cock ….”

“That _is_ all you think about!” said Nira.

They both laughed, and Brienne too.

Alara drank some more. “I want to get back to my mother, though,” she said then. The cockiness drained away from her face Jaime noticed. Suddenly she looked much younger. “I was a shit to her when I was a girl – she didn’t deserve it.”

“Where does she live?” Brienne asked.

“Lannisport. I’ve never been far from her, but … I didn’t think she’d want me back. I always thought one day I’d meet a nice man, marry him and he’d get some babes on me. If I went back to my mother with a baby, I think she’d be pleased.”

Brienne had a soft smile on her face, Jaime noticed. “A baby is a wonderful thing. It – it can change a lot, for good as well as ill.”

“Would you like more children?” asked Addam. “Ser Brienne?”

The smile fell off Brienne’s face. She stuttered a little. “How – how do you mean?” her eyes darted to Jaime. Jaime shrank further back in his hood.

Addam continued to look at her, his eyes wide.

Brienne stammered some more. Then tried a laugh, like she thought he was jesting at her expense. “I didn’t exactly intend to have Sapphire!”

She buried her face in her cup to drink, but Addam didn’t stop looking at her. Neither did Nira or Alara.

Brienne tried another deflecting laugh. She was not comfortable – perhaps the return of her moonblood had made this possibility all too real. “I – I made a vow to myself when I was on the birthing bed I would never go through it again!”

“So you wouldn't?” asked Alara.

“No, I –”

“You’re a good mother,” Jaime said.

Brienne’s eyes jerked to his. They stared at him for a long, long moment, her skin luminous in the firelight. As always, there was that hovering spectre of Cersei between them – Cersei, who everyone knew loved her children fiercely. Enough to burn cities to the ground.

But Cersei had not loved her children the way Brienne loved Sapphire. She had loved them in the way she loved Jaime, crushing, smothering. So hard she wanted to inhabit their bodies and consume their lives for herself.

A Lannister’s love – a love that wasn’t loving at all.

Jaime shrugged. Looked at his hand. “Our daughter … she is a happy babe for one who was an accident. You have loved her well and cared for her better still.”

“Thank you,” said Brienne.

“You _should_ have more.”

Brienne gave a curt nod and stared back into the flames. Her face was quite red now.

“Do you have any children, Ser Ginger?” Alara asked. Jaime almost rolled his eyes, she really couldn’t be more obvious.

Addam shook his head. “I’ve always been …”

 _Careful_ was the word he couldn’t say. Obviously, he’d got halfway through the sentence before realising that might be rude – Jaime and Brienne really hadn’t been careful at all.

Jaime almost laughed – Addam was right, they really hadn’t been. Or rather, she’d been in love, and he’d been half dead.

“You will, of course, be expected to have heirs at some point?” Jaime pointed out. “For House Marbrand.”

Addam gave him a peculiar look. “I suppose I will.”

Alara nodded. “There you go then, Ser,” she said to Brienne.

“I...” Brienne fidgeted, swirling the contents of her cup.

Addam scoffed. “Let’s see if we survive the next week before we start thinking about _heirs_ , shall we? It’s a little much, given our current situation.”

Brienne looked absurdly relieved. Buried her face back in her cup.

Jaime watched her, watched her pour herself another drink and swallow it without a pause. Wondering if her belly hurt on account of her moonblood, or perhaps she was just anxious about getting to the capital.

“I’d best turn in,” she said when she had drained her cup. “I doubt Sapphire will sleep well, with all the changes.”

They all bade her goodnight, and sat watching the fire in silence.

Addam threw the rest of his ale into the snow. “That’s not a nice drink.”

“I know.” Jaime shifted a little closer to the fire.

“I’ve had worse,” Alara said.

Nira just smiled and nodded – the girl very rarely spoke when they were all together, Jaime had noticed. Unlike Alara she really _was_ a handmaid – too shy to speak openly in front of lords and ladies.

Addam lifted his eyes from the bottom of his empty cup with a grin on his face that looked quite forced. Looked at the others around the fire. “So … I believe offering Ser Brienne my cloak may be folly?”

“No!” said Alara at once. “Don’t say that, Ser.”

But he was looking at Jaime – Jaime didn’t know what to say. He shrugged. “Brienne is … she’s a very focused woman. Right now, we have a knightly quest, and her duty will always come first. I’ve never met anyone who took their knightly oaths more seriously.”

Addam nodded. He regarded Jaime with a quizzical tilt to his brow. “You know … I thought you’d knighted her because you were fucking her.”

Jaime raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“The way Tyrion told it, it seemed like something ridiculous. That you’d knighted a woman you were hoping would bed you. I ... you were always a besotted fool over Cersei, it stood to reason.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“I know that now,” Addam said in a small voice. “I - I’d knight her too.”

“Oh, Gods!” Alara laughed. “Listen to the two of you!”

Addam made a face.

“Am I the only one here who doesn’t want to get face-first in Ser’s smallclothes?”

“Alara!” Nira cried. She was beet-red, Jaime noticed.

“ _You_ like Brienne?” Addam asked the smaller handmaid with a grin. “In _that_ way?”

“I –”

Alara laughed and put on a high voice to ape her friend. “’Oh, Ser’s so wonderful, have you seen how she looks in her armour? Have you seen her muscles? Have you seen her swing her sword?’”

“Alara stop it!”

“There’s no shame in it. Like Ser Ginger said, we’ll probably be heads on spikes this time next week. If we can’t speak freely now, then when?”

Jaime swallowed. That was very true. They had all been sitting here talking as if they had all the time in the world, time to marry, to conceive and birth more children, time for a future. But they were walking towards something horrible. Something completely unknown.

A Black Hole.

 _Jaime Lannister. Together we will see what you will do for love_.

“It’s my fault,” he heard himself say. “She … gods, she was so in love with me – proper first love. Gooey and silly and sloppy and … the way it is when you’re a green squire. I broke that so hard – you should have heard her beg me to stay.”

He rubbed his face with his hand. “She deserved better than that. She deserved the knight … the _man_ she thought I was.”

“She still –” Addam said.

But Jaime cut him off. “No. How could she trust me? I could never make her happy, not now. I know that. Not after everything. I ruined what we had. Ruined her life in the wake. There’s no coming back from that.”

“Do you regret it?” Addam asked. Poking the fire to turn one of the logs over. “Or do you still pine for Cersei even now?”

“I regret it. Of course I do. I’ll regret it even more if she never finds that happiness again.”

Addam looked at him for a long, long moment. “Thank you,” he said at last.

They did not get a chance to speak of it again. There was an inn the next night and the two nights after. It began to snow the day after that, thick and relentless, and they made such little progress in the blizzard that they were forced to spend the night huddled in the carriage getting very little sleep. Sapphire woke repeatedly, and no one could soothe her. Everyone was irritable and restless.

By the morning, the snow had slowed. They were on the Kingsroad now, and things were quiet – oddly so. Jaime had expected to see merchants’ carts and carriages from the capital by now, despite the weather. There had been all but three years of winter now – people adapted, they always did. It bothered him, and he wondered if it bothered Addam too. The man was strangely quiet.

Brienne still rode in the carriage with Sapphire, Nira and Alara. She’d tried to ride Sunchaser for a while yesterday but had to stop after the motion hurt her pelvis. She was still not fully recovered.

The day after that was strange. Jaime woke in his tent beside Addam with a thick head, a sense that he was moving through treacle. He got up and got his boots on, managed to get to a tree to make his water and then –

Then he’d had a fit.

His first for moons. He woke in Addam’s arms, with a stick between his teeth. Piss all over his boots and breeches. Then it happened again as they were packing the carriage – after which Brienne insisted that he ride inside with the handmaids.

He had – his head pounding, his eyes full of stars. Sapphire clambering all over him as he tried to count the trees that they passed.

Even the snow was strange, he thought the next day as they approached King’s Landing. It, too, fell as if it fell through treacle. He could trace the path of a single snowflake with his eyes, watch it land and settle. Understand every motion it made through the trees.

No.

Something was definitely not right.

You could smell the shit in the capital for miles – Jaime had lived there most of his adult life and it had never changed. Unless Tyrion and Bran the Broken had time to implement a much-improved sewer system …

“It’s so quiet,” whispered Addam as they stopped by the side of the road to stretch their legs and eat a meagre lunch.

It _was_. Aside from Sapphire’s cheery high-pitched chatter, there was not a sound anywhere. No birds or animals. No people.

“We should hear the city by now,” Brienne said. “Why can’t we?”

After they had eaten, she put her armour on. Strapped Oathkeeper to her hip. Sapphire grizzled at her feet, wanting to be picked up.

“What are you doing?” asked Jaime.

“We should scout ahead,” she said. Take the horses. I – I don’t want to take Sapphire in there blindly.”

Jaime nodded.

“Addam too,” she said. “Nira and Alara can guard the carriage.”

The three of them rode off into the still buzz of the snow. The only sound was Sapphire crying. And crying. And crying. Wanting her mother. Wanting her father.

There were three miles to the city gates, thereabouts.

The first mile rang Jaime’s head like a bell. His eyes were caught by every snowflake, every leaf. Every stone on the road, every clop of Venture’s hooves. The feel of Brienne’s arms around him as she sat behind him in the saddle.

The snow got slower. Slower still.

It was still thick. Still a blizzard. Still silent as the grave. It fell so slowly though, unnaturally so, seeming to stutter in the sky.

Behind him, Brienne breathed _hard_.

“What is this?” Addam asked, his tongue sounding too fat for his mouth. “Some sorcery?”

It was. Jaime already knew it was. As they drew closer, the snow stopped altogether. Not gone – stopped dead. The flakes were frozen in the air around them, not falling. Not moving. Brienne picked up a hand to push them aside. They stayed, clumped, where she pushed it.

“What in all the hells?” she breathed.

The second mile, they saw their first person.

He was a dead man, a corpse standing by the side of the road. Totally frozen where he stood, where he had been walking with a bundle in his arms. He had died on his feet and stayed there.

Now the city loomed large ahead of them. Dead. Unmoving. Utterly silent.

There were houses and billets and buildings outside the city walls. Hundreds of them, dead and done.

“This … this is where Sapphire was born,” Brienne whispered.

There were people everywhere, men, women, playing children. All dead. All frozen. Rotting where they stood.

“Brienne,” said Addam. “This is a mistake.”

Brienne said nothing. Venture and Sunchaser plodded on towards the gates.

The Dragon Gates were still mostly rubble, no doubt from when Daenerys Targaryen had lit the city on fire with her dragon that day. But a path had been cleared into the city, towards the main thoroughfare. People had been coming in. People had been going out. All of them were dead and frozen now. Every one.

Here, the air whined. Jaime’s head _pulsed_.

Black

Black

Black

Black

He could feel it now, the power of it. The Black Hole. Something else, too.

“We shouldn’t go in,” Addam said. “We’ll –”

“We won’t,” said Jaime. Somehow he knew what Addam was going to say. “This is what he wants.”

“And we’re going to give him what he wants?”

“We have to,” said Brienne. “That’s the point.”

Jaime slung his leg back over Venture’s neck. Slithered from the saddle to his feet.

This was where he was meant to be, he knew. This was where it was going to begin.

He felt strangely relaxed about it. Tranquil, almost. Behind him, Brienne got off the horse as well. Oathkeeper in her hand.

“I’m ready!” Jaime called to the frozen sky.

Then he caught sight of the keep and realised he was anything but ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very sorry for yet another cliffhanger - seems I'm getting a taste for torturing my poor readers. I promise I'll have the next part asap!
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone still reading and commenting. Just two more chapters to go on Jaime's section and then we'll be moving on to "Us Without Each Other" where we'll be flitting wildly between Brienne and Jaime to hopefully conclude this beast. And then I'm hoping to write something which will redeem me and allow me at least a weekend pass back into the fandom! :D
> 
> My usual shoutout to CaptainTarthister here - she's been a champ listening to me pick apart the fireside scene this week, and has stayed up well past her bedtime to give me a read-through tonight. THANK YOU!!
> 
> Next order of business is to point you in the direction of the amazingness that is the [Jaime Without Brienne playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3LmWk4CW3argNpmnYwy7M2). It's compiled and updated by a very sweet reader who it's been a pleasure to get to know.
> 
> And if you'd like updates and teasers and some of my insane ravings, please do consider following me on Twitter [@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister) or on Tumblr [@catherineflowers29](https://catherineflowers29.tumblr.com/). Come and say hi, I love to chat!


	11. Royal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the capital ...

The keep …

The Red Keep as Jaime had known it wasn’t there.

Instead, there was light. A white light, pure white, bright as the sun in its place. A white light swirling with black, just as Giddon’s eyes had. The light seemed alive – at war with itself. Swirling and seething and struggling and surging. Not right. Somehow, he knew it wasn’t right.

“What the fuck is that?” asked Addam. He held tight to his reins. Even the normally unflappable Sunchaser was skittish, wild-eyed, trying to turn back. Venture was nowhere to be seen.

In the middle, the blackness grew bigger. Bigger. Bigger still. Big enough to eat at Jaime’s mind. He couldn’t look. He looked away.

There was a child.

A boy of ten, climbing the wall by the gate. Not dead. Not frozen.

Jaime blinked. The rest of the world stood still, but the boy climbed upward, seeking handholds and footholds in the stones.

Jaime turned to Brienne, but she was gone. Vanished, Addam too. Of course they were gone; he knew who this boy was.

Jaime took a step towards him, past the bodies of two children who stood, rotting in place where they had been running in the street, their hands entwined. The snowflakes had frozen around them.

Jaime saw Sapphire. He saw Tobas and Dravor. He saw Tommen, Myrcella and Joffrey. He saw Brandon Stark, a boy of ten, terror in his eyes.

“Is this supposed to make me feel guilty?” he asked.

The boy on the wall stopped climbing. His head turned, slowly. Slowly. It was him. Brandon Stark, as he had been the day that Jaime pushed him out of the window. His face was a horror and a terror, frozen in that frightened, wide-eyed scream he’d had when Jaime pushed him.

“I didn’t kill these people,” Jaime said.

Bran stepped off the wall. Floated towards Jaime, through the air. His limbs flopped at his sides, and now he looked the way he had looked, broken, on the ground. The way he’d looked when Jaime had seen him out of the window after he’d pushed him. So small. So helpless. Just a broken baby.

Catelyn Stark’s baby.

“You did,” he said. “Your black hole killed them.”

Jaime shook his head. “I don’t even know what that is.”

Bran dropped his head, and when he lifted it again, he was no longer a child. He was the young man Jaime remembered at Winterfell, before the battle with the dead. He floated still, his feet a foot from the ground, his toes pointing down and dangling, like those of a hanged man.

“I have some things to show you,” Bran said, and his voice was that same monotone he had spoken at Winterfell. The man who wasn’t Brandon Stark at all.

“I think I’ve seen enough.”

Bran paused, looking about them both at the corpses. “I didn’t mean for these people to die.”

“What – what happened?”

“I’m not entirely sure. I’ve been back to the moment it happened so many times and … I’m still not sure what I did wrong.”

“Are they all dead? The whole city?”

“Yes. For some miles around, as well.” He was utterly emotionless about it – somehow that was worse than Aerys, screaming _burn them all!_

Jaime nodded. “How did you do it?”

“I was trying to stop you. Before you killed me.”

“You’ve failed?”

“I have some things to show you.”

“You said that.”

“Then come and see them, Ser Jaime.”

“See what? Where?”

But Bran didn’t answer. Jaime opened his mouth to speak again, and suddenly they weren’t in the city any more. He had blinked – and between his eyes closing and opening once again, they had moved – another place and time entirely.

The smell of straw and the smell of horseshit surrounded him. The busy sounds of a castle, too, people working, moving, talking, laughing, shouting. Such a contrast from the dead snow in the dead city.

It took Jaime a moment to understand where they were.

They were in the stables at Winterfell. Jaime recognised it then – they were stood right next to the stall where he had eaten Brienne’s cunt the day after they had lain together for the first time. A horse was in the stall now, and at the far end, a stableboy sat cleaning and polishing a saddle.

Jaime turned to ask Bran what he was meant to be seeing, and suddenly, there was Brienne. She was in the next stall, brushing her horse, blowing a strand of hair impatiently out of her eyes.

Jaime gasped. Her eye was bruised, as it had been after they fought the army of the dead. The bruise was fading to yellow.

“Brienne …” he said. She didn’t react. Carried on brushing her horse down, that furrow of concentration right in the middle of her brow. “She can’t see me?”

“We’re not here,” said Bran. “This is the past.”

“You truly can see the past.”

Bran nodded, expressionless. “And so can you.”

“How?”

“The trees.”

Jaime stood, transfixed, watching Brienne take care of her horse. It was a big thing, a black she’d called Ash that she’d had since Riverrun at least. She’d told him with irritation that Podrick had lost the mare he’d given her by not hobbling her properly one night in the Vale. Ash had been the horse she’d got to replace it.

“What am I meant to be seeing?” he asked after a moment. Brienne brushed her horse down a lot – there didn’t seem to be anything remarkable about this moment.

“It’s not what you can see,” Bran told him. “But can you feel it? This is the moment your daughter’s life began.”

“My – my daughter? Sapphire?”

Brann nodded. “Sapphire. Is that her name now?”

Jaime didn’t understand. He looked back to Brienne.

So this – this was the moment his seed had quickened in Brienne’s belly? He almost laughed – it was so perfectly mundane. Both he and she completely unaware of it.

“You were not the black hole then,” Bran said as Brienne put her brush away. She patted Ash and smoothed her long fingers over his flank with a satisfied smile. Soft as a caress.

“I wasn’t?”

Jaime blinked again, and they were elsewhere. Brienne’s chambers – the heat as blisteringly hot as he remembered, the fire banked and bright.

He saw himself, naked in her bed. Sprawled beneath the furs, the bruises on his body yellowing just like Brienne’s had been. Jaime could not help but admire himself – he had all but forgotten how beautiful his own body had once been. Lean and leonine, muscular and lithe all at once. No wonder Brienne had all but jumped on him every time she walked through her chamber door.

“This – this is the same day?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Bran. “The same moment.”

The same moment when Sapphire began. The other Jaime was not asleep – he had never been able to sleep much at Winterfell; instead, he lay looking up at the ceiling, his brow furrowed. Once Tyrion had left, he remembered, he’d been somewhat directionless. Going out around the castle just got him a stream of whispered insults, and even once, a chamber pot emptied from a window over his head. So, mostly, he’d lain in Brienne’s bed waiting for her to come back and have sex with him.

“So when did I become your black hole?”

“I’m not precisely certain,” Bran said. “After all, I can’t see it.”

As they spoke, the door opened. Brienne came in, a tender, tired smile on her face, her saddlebags over her arm. She caught sight of him in her bed and dropped the bags at her feet. Smiled at him and bit her lip like she had been thinking lascivious thoughts of this moment all day.

“Take us out of here,” said Jaime. “Or is this how you pass your time? Watching couples bed one another?”

Already his other self was out of bed, quite naked, already he was halfway across the room, his cock hardening as he walked.

This time, Jaime felt the movement. He felt it. There was a flash of light behind his eyes, a swirl of something white and something in his mouth, brittle and chalky. Gone before he truly registered it.

Then they were in Winterfell again, in the great hall, this time in the early morning. Watching two handmaids serve Lady Sansa with her breakfast. A smattering of others dotted the tables, and by her side, her brother Bran.

Sansa looked up as someone strode across the hall. Jaime turned and gasped.

Brienne looked like death. Grey-faced and pained, like she was suffering from a deadly sickness. Sansa Stark gasped as well.

“Lady Brienne?” she said. Forgetting that she was a Ser. “Are you unwell?”

Brienne’s chin wobbled. She stuck it defiantly in the air and straightened her back. All eyes in the hall were on her now.

“Ser Jaime has left Winterfell,” she said. Her voice cracked in the middle of the word ‘Winterfell’. Her hand was so tight on Oathkeeper’s grip it was bloodless.

Sansa Stark said nothing for a long, long moment. Brienne didn’t speak, either.

“Back to his sister,” Sansa asked when the silence became near unbearable.

“Yes.”

Jaime felt sick to his stomach. Sorrier than he’d ever been. He wanted to run out onto the Kingsroad somewhere and scream at his younger, fitter self to turn his fucking horse around.

Sansa let out a sigh. “It was to be expected.”

Brienne swallowed.

“Are you certain?” It was Bran – looking at Brienne with the most peculiar expression on his face. Well – perhaps the expression itself wasn’t peculiar – it was the fact that he _had_ an expression at all.

Brienne’s mouth opened. Closed again. “Yes … my Lord. He … he rode away last night for the capital.”

“Curious.”

Sansa waved her hand. Beckoned her handmaid to return to her side. “Send a raven,” she bade the girl. “Tell the Dragon Queen to watch out for Ser Jaime trying to sneak into the capital to give aid to his sister.”

Brienne opened her mouth to protest, her face a desperate plea. Sansa looked up at her sharply.

Jaime had never hated himself more than he did right then. Nor the smug, honourable Starks with their knowing, full-of-pity looks at Brienne. Poor, sad innocent, daring to believe that the Kingslayer had loved such an ugly creature as her.

“Curious,” the Bran Stark sat at the table said again. His eyes went pure white, as if he’d rolled them back in his head, but suddenly there was a flash of black across them. Bran took a sharp breath.

Oh.

Abruptly, Jaime realised exactly what he was meant to see here. It wasn’t Brienne’s pain and misery, nor Sansa Stark’s gloating. It was _him_. It was Bran.

He turned to the Bran who floated beside him. “You didn’t know I’d left?”

“I didn’t. I was not expecting it.”

“So … you can see the future, too?”

“Yes, I can.”

Bran turned again to face Jaime, and around them, everything melted. The great hall of Winterfell, the tables and benches, the fires and the candles. Brienne, Sansa and the other Bran.

Jaime was in the throne room in King’s Landing.

It was not as he remembered, not at all.

The roof was gone, burned away by Daenerys Targaryen’s dragonfire if the twisted, melted edges to the stones were anything to go by. Snow fell through the open roof, or it had been before it had frozen in mid-air.

But the throne … the throne was gone. Addam had told him it had been melted by dragonfire after Daenerys’ death, nothing more than a puddle of molten metal. He had said nothing of _this_.

Where it had once stood was a tree. A weirwood, bigger than any weirwood that Jaime had ever seen. So big it looked hundreds of years old, though Jaime knew that for an impossibility. It had pushed up through the stone floor of the throne room and had grown right through the roof. Its branches were thicker than a man’s torso, weaving around the columns, absorbing the braziers, pushing through the windows.

Its blood-red leaves were silhouetted against the plain grey sky. Red turned to black. Millions of them, it seemed, more of them than there were stars in the heavens.

There, in a flat fork in the middle of the trunk, sat Bran the Broken. Sat may have been the wrong word; he hung, limp, held in place by branches. His hair wild and long, his face unshaven, his robe tattered. He had not left the tree for some time by the smell of things.

“What is this?” Jaime asked.

“It’s the Three-Eyed Raven,” said Bran, from behind him. Jaime span as fast as his ruined legs could spin him. Bran was there – looking as he had at Winterfell and nothing like the withered creature in the branches.

“The tree, the –”

“He sits the Weirwood Throne.”

“Is that what that is?” Jaime turned back to look at it again, fascinated by the hugeness of it.

“I raised it … with little more than a thought.”

Jaime stepped closer, wanting to reach out and touch one of those colossal branches, but the smell beat him back.

At first, he had thought it was coming from the man entangled in the tree, but closer, he knew it wasn’t so. The smell was the tree itself – a putrid, vinegary smell of rotted sap and blighted bark. It hurt Jaime’s teeth.

“What – what is that?!” he gasped.

The Bran beside him narrowed his eyes. “Get closer.”

Jaime didn’t want to, but he also couldn't not. He crept slowly around the outside of the tree – the _throne_ – careful on the uneven floor without his cane. Ducking to avoid the branches.

The smell … it wasn’t a smell. It was … a sound?

Suddenly Jaime could _hear_ it. It was a whispered scream, thin and reedy and desperate. The last sounds that came from a strangled man’s throat.

It threatened to overwhelm him, send him mad. He couldn’t bear it, it ate at him, body and soul.

There were thousands of voices in it, suddenly … thousands of deaths, thousands of miseries, thousands of agonies. All of them like knives through Jaime’s skin. Like Euron Greyjoy’s sword, stabbing through his guts.

“You feel it, don’t you?” asked Bran, beside him. Above him. His cold, dispassionate voice like a splash of water to the face.

Jaime realised he was on the floor. On his back, his limbs trembling, his muscles stiff. Like a fit, but …

“I feel it,” he managed to gasp.

“I thought as much. This is you. Look what you’ve done.”

Jaime could see it now, as clear as day. As clear as Sapphire’s bright blue eyes, as clear as the river that flowed through the trees near the hut that was home.

The Weirwood was not alone.

There was another tree, too. A black one, a tree of shadows and shine all at once. Thinner than the weirwood, but _strong_. It coiled around it, all but embedded in the trunk where the weirwood had attempted to grow free.

Strangling it.

Strangling Bran, as well. The branches that held him in place were not those of the weirwood, but those of this other tree. They were wrapped around his limbs. His body. His neck.

“That … that’s the black hole,” Jaime said.

Bran nodded, looking up at his own face, locked in the branches. “It’s grown quite beyond my ability to contain it. I tried … The only thing I could do to stop it was to stop time from passing. But I killed the city, and still the black tree grows.”

Jaime knew that tree – that tree was _him._ It had been whispering to him every day while he washed out Sapphire’s napkins, dancing in every shadow, shaking its leaves like laughter while he hunted. It was a tree from the forest where he’d learned to live again, where he'd forgiven himself of his hatefulness, where he’d been a father and a friend and a neighbour.

The tree was him. It was his life.

The tree was _him_.

“How?” he asked. “The Starks have the blood of the First Men. Wargs and greenseers and all manner of mystical things. But I – I’m descended from the Andals. It makes no sense.”

Bran’s eyes had a slight touch of humour to them, if such a thing was possible. “We are all so much more mixed of blood than our proud family lineage would have us believe.”

“I … I can’t even begin to understand your abilities. I was good with a sword, good at leading armies, some of the time. I’m not – not some _magician_.”

“Those are not the only things you are good at,” Bran said.

Jaime made a face. Good at washing napkins, perhaps. “My sister called me the stupidest Lannister. Truly – I can’t even read that well.”

“You don’t have your sister any more. Nor your father, nor your brother. You are finally becoming the man you were always meant to be.”

For a moment, Jaime all but felt the hand of Tywin Lannister on his cheek, as if he were in the room.

“And who – _what_ – is it that I was meant to be?”

“Long ago, when there were powerful greenseers who had the ability to turn trees into weapons. Like this. I would suspect that is what you are.”

Jaime looked up at the thing before him, the stinking, groaning hulk of the Weirwood Throne, wrapped in that strangling tree.

“You said you could see the future. But you didn’t expect me to leave Winterfell.”

“No.”

“That is when I started to be the Black Hole?”

Bran nodded. “I didn’t think it mattered at first. I thought you had died beneath the rubble of King’s Landing a few short weeks later – what was one more body among the ashes? I expected your decision would affect very little. But it soon became apparent it had changed many things.”

“Oh?”

“You were alive, of course. And then everything and everyone you interacted with changed as well. In the Westerlands, the farm your brother sent you to, the people he employed to take care of you, they were not where they were meant to be either. And when their lives changed, so did those of the people around them, too. Families and friends, lovers and companions. Which meant I saw none of them either – nothing. Over time, that grew and grew – people meeting more people when they shouldn’t, subtle changes here and there that I could not predict and could not see. A huge black hole in my sight. Because of you.”

The last word hung heavy in the still air between them.

“I think your brother tried to help, you know. Once he realised what was happening. Once I told him. He tried to set things right as best he could, sending people to you who should be with you, writing to my sister in the North.”

“You killed him.”

“As I was supposed to.”

“Why?”

“Because I was supposed to.”

“That’s no answer.”

“It is the only answer.”

Jaime shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“You do. Some part of you does – and I think you will come to understand more.”

Jaime thought on it a little. “Tyrion … sent people to me who should be with me? You mean Brienne, don’t you? Our daughter.”

“Yes.”

“He tried to push us together again. I was supposed to stay with Brienne? That’s what you thought I’d do?”

“Yes. You said to me ‘I’m not that man any more’.”

Jaime looked at his feet. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t believe it, though. I tried. I wanted to try. But I thought I’d be dead come the morrow. I thought I would get my honourable death.”

“You wanted death.”

“I did.”

“And now?”

Jaime shook his head. Without hesitation. “Now, I want to live.”

Bran tried a smile, but it looked empty and hollow on his face. “I was hoping you would say that.”

“Why?”

“I have something more I want you to see.”

Jaime turned to Bran, but before he could speak, they were somewhere else.

They were outside, in the courtyard of a castle in the snow. Deep, thick snow, the kind they had at Winterfell. The air was biting too, the way it was at Winterfell. They were somewhere in the North.

Not at Winterfell, though. This castle was far smaller, a grim, hard thing built from dark stone and perched defiantly on the side of a cliff.

“Where are we?” Jaime asked.

“The Last Hearth,” Bran said.

“The seat of House … Umber?”

“House Umber are no more. The dead came for them and left the castle empty. When my sister became Queen in the North, she gifted the castles of the dead houses to those who had been loyal.”

“And who –”

Jaime stopped. He caught sight of a man dismounting a horse at the stables. Handing it off to a stableboy before striding across the courtyard, right past them, his fur-lined cape billowing out behind him in the biting wind. A man with a thick golden beard and long golden curls streaked with silver. A man with a hook for a hand.

“That’s … _me_?”

“Lord Lannister of the Last Hearth.”

Jaime gaped. Hardly believing what he was seeing. The man before him was fit and whole. No cane. No scar. Both ears. Widow’s Wail at his hip. “But – but … why did I …”

Just then, he saw Brienne. She came out of a tower to greet him, Sapphire in her arms.

She, too, was dressed in a long fur cape, with a fine leather jacket and fine leather breeches beneath. Sapphire was togged up like a proper little lady – skirts and silks. She smiled to see her father, gave a delighted squeal.

“Gods!” he gasped, unable to contain himself. “She – is she truly my lady wife?”

“Yes,” Bran said.

“And Sapphire …”

“The child is Lady Joanna Lannister.”

“Joanna?”

Named for his mother, he supposed. When they had both chosen her name together, it was not Sapphire but Joanna.

“In a moon, she will have your son and heir in her belly, too. A boy you will name Galladon.”

Jaime watched as his other self greeted his wife and daughter with a smile on his face. A quick, tender kiss to Brienne’s lips.

Brienne looked so soft, he thought. Soft around the eyes, her mouth upturned in a gentle smile, her hand running down her husband’s arm in a gentle caress. He hadn’t realised how tired and careworn his own Brienne had become, how sadness and anger and suffering had marked her face.

This was the face of a Brienne who knew love – who was loved so deeply that Cersei hadn’t been a thought. The face of a Brienne who trusted Jaime, who believed in him, who had never had cause to doubt he was an honourable man.

The face of a Brienne who still loved him.

Gods, she looked so handsome, too – big and sturdy and perfect with her hair cropped short, the smile on her face just heated enough to let him know that wherever Lord Jaime had been, he would be lovingly welcomed home in their bedchamber later.

Jaime felt sick with longing. What a stupid, pointless fool he was, to have thrown all this away to die with a sad, vicious liar like Cersei. He saw his other self take Sapphire – _Joanna_ – from Brienne’s arms and give her a fatherly kiss on the forehead.

It hurt … it hurt _so much_.

Far more than he could ever have imagined. He had believed himself past this, happy that Brienne and Addam were together, content to have known the love of his daughter, but _this_ … it was an ache so potent he thought it might kill him.

He let out an endless sigh.

“What will you do for love, Jaime Lannister?” asked Bran by his side.

Jaime didn’t answer.

Then suddenly, it was all gone. Jaime lifted a hand as if he could grasp the fading vision before him, hold onto it somehow, but it disappeared before his eyes. He and Bran stood in the freezing, frozen throne room, surrounded by the shadows of branches and leaves. In the middle of a dead city, in front of another King he hadn’t stopped.

There was a bowl at his feet. A carved wooden bowl that hadn’t been there before, filled with something that looked like something he’d never seen. Fish eggs, perhaps? Grey ones, streaked with weird, red veins. The texture of watery porridge.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s your decision.”

“What is?”

“The moment you just saw – it’s not the past. It’s now. It’s what you should be doing now.”

“And?”

“You had the power to change the future. To choose the path you chose for yourself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You also have the power to change _back_.”

Oh.

So he … he could …

“I could be that man? The man I just saw?”

“Yes.”

He could forget all of this, leave it behind. Undo Brienne’s heartbreak. Marry her and be her lord husband. Have Joanna … and Galladon … and as many other children as he could plant in her belly before she grew too old.

They could be the Lord and Lady of the Last Hearth.

In front of him, the black tree wrapped around the white tree swelled. Shimmered. Rippled. Tightened around Bran the Broken.

He could be with Brienne. She would want to be with him. Cersei would be gone, cold and distant and dead. They could forget her and be a family. Forever.

Jaime ate.

The porridge tasted bitter, acrid almost, but as he took another spoonful, he noticed it wasn’t so bad. It tasted no worse than Weslar’s ale. The next bite was Giddon’s carrots, and the next was Mertha’s crab apple jam. The last was as sweet as Sapphire’s kiss.

Of course. It was all so simple.

The trees were his! They spoke to him, a sweet whisper of love, of love, of all the love in the world. Their branches were arms, and their leaves were voices, whispering to him.

Jaime knew them – he’d known them all his life when he’d loved his sister, loved the way they dappled the light on her naked golden skin. He’d known them when he’d loved Tyrion, too, shoving his little brother up ahead of him into high branches, laughing and playing.

The trees had been there when he’d fallen in love with Brienne, sweating and swooning on her shoulder as his severed hand throbbed and wailed in pain. Streaking that beautiful sky while he lay dying until she persuaded him to eat.

They’d surrounded him as he’d ridden to Winterfell with Brienne on his mind, wanting and yearning and loving her.

Brienne … Brienne.

It felt like she was here. So close Jaime could smell her.

“I love you,” he whispered, and she _was_ there.

It was as easy as that.

He was in that snowy courtyard, in the Last Hearth. Wrapped in that fine fur cloak and standing steady on his own two feet. The wind in his beard and his legs not hurting. Taller than he had been in moons.

Brienne smiled down at him, Joanna in his arms.

“I love you, too,” she said. “I’ve missed you, husband.”

He leaned up and kissed her, home at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ONE MORE CHAPTER TO GO!!
> 
> But not the end! In case you've missed it, this will be followed by the concluding part of the story, Us Without Each Other, where we will be moving between Brienne and Jaime's POVs to resolve and conclude things. I really hope you'll all stick around and see how this pans out!
> 
> Three cheers for my bestest best CaptainTarthister for her ever-present support and love. She knows how to whip me into shape!
> 
> I hope you are all keeping up with the amazeballs [Jaime Without Brienne playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3LmWk4CW3argNpmnYwy7M2). Big thanks to my lovely reader for her brilliant choices - she captures the chapters perfectly every time. 
> 
> Also, if you're super excited to see what happens next, why not come follow me on [@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister) or Tumblr [@catherineflowers29](https://catherineflowers29.tumblr.com/)? I post teasers and updates and I love to chat with people about the story and I'm very, very nice. Hope to see you there, or here again very soon for the concluding part of Jaime Without Brienne!


	12. Sapphire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime explores the alternate timeline.

Jaime took Brienne to bed.

The wet nurse had taken Sapphire – or Joanna, as she was known here, and Jaime had all but bundled Brienne into their bedchamber, not caring that it was the middle of the day, not caring that there were servants and smallfolk around and that there were Lordly things to do. Not caring about anything except _her_.

Brienne made a token protest, but Jaime knew Brienne – Brienne liked sex. She had never needed much persuasion, and Lady Brienne of the Last Hearth wasn’t any different.

He kissed her wildly even before he had kicked the door shut. And ohhh … it had been so easy to do that, so easy to balance, so easy to not fall over as he extended his foot behind him. He yanked at the fastening of his cloak and then hers, practically eating her face as he did.

His hook dug into her side as he held her against him – she hissed in pain. That would take some getting used to.

“I’m sorry,” he said, yanking the bulky thing off and dropping it to the floor. And then he couldn’t seem to stop saying it.

“I’m sorry, Brienne, I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry …”

Peppering her face with kisses. Nibbling her neck. Pulling the ties on her tunic undone.

“Shhhh,” she breathed. “It’s just a scratch.”

Jaime had forgotten. He nothing to be sorry for, not here, not to this Brienne.

Oh, she felt good pressed against him, and the smell of her skin and the taste of her breath … Jaime wanted to be inside her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. Wanted her to take him, show him that it was all going to be all right now.

It _was_. Everything was going to be perfect. They were together. They were happy. Bran the Broken and his peculiar tree magic were a thousand leagues away. Jaime hadn’t left Brienne, and everything in the world was all as it should be.

Somehow they were on the bed, him on top of her and then her on top of him. Then side by side, pulling at their clothes.

He threw himself at her huge naked body, kissed down the line of hair below her bellybutton. Licked into her cunt with a helpless groan. She tasted so good and smelled so good, her sex glistening and flushed like perfectly-ripe fruit. Fucking beautiful. She wrapped her thighs tight around his head, just as he liked, both her hands twisted hard in his hair.

Jaime was _home_.

He tried to tell her that he loved her, but nothing but a muffled groan came out. He showed her with his tongue, instead, swirling her clit with it, lapping and licking and teasing and sucking. His hand clutched at her arse, his stump hooked over her thigh, holding her harder and harder and harder against his face.

He wanted her to smother him. Crush him. Break his skull like the Mountain broke Oberyn Martell’s – only with her thighs.

She rolled them both over without letting go. Gods, she was strong! She pinned him to the bed with her cunt, his head pressed between her thighs while she lay astride his face. And then she was grinding against him as he tongued her, and he had to snatch breaths between her thrusts, squashed and sweating and drowning in her wetness.

“I’m – I’m going to come,” she whimpered. Her toes curled against his back.

She let out a deep, throaty cry and thrust so hard into his face he thought she’d break his nose. Then she collapsed atop him, and Jaime was lost in a shuddering, sated bundle of thighs and cunt and belly and Brienne. Trying to kiss it all, laughing himself witless.

“Oh … _Gods_ ,” she panted. Her face was bright red, and her hair was a tangled, sweaty mess.

She was a revelation! A different Brienne entirely – with two more years of sexual experience under her belt, a more confident Brienne who had never had her heart broken.

Jaime could have died then and there, never so happy, were it not for the fact that his cock was begging him for attention.

He grinned up at her from her cunt and squirmed up the bed even as he urged her lower, seating her on his hips and nudging against her arse with his cock.

She reached between them to guide him and then – _then_ … oh, highest of the seven heavens, he was inside her. Inside _Brienne_.

Never mind that she wasn’t his Brienne, fuck that and fuck it hard. This is what Brienne would have wanted. Him and her. Together.

She sank down on him so slowly he couldn’t bear it, the sensation so intense it was almost impossible to take. He took three deep breaths, clinging to her, an arm around her waist and one under her arse. He lifted his hips once, twice, sliding the delicious swollen head of his cock through her tight slick heat … and then it was all over.

The world disappeared in a blinding glut of sensation – warm, wet, pulsing, squeezing, thrusting, grunting. Shadows and shine.

Jaime came back to himself wrapped in Brienne’s arms, his face buried in the scars on her neck. She shifted and kissed him, a thorough, long, soft wet kiss that was all delicious tongue. He was softening inside her, both of them soaked with his seed.

“I missed you so much,” he whispered.

Brienne screwed up her brow. “You were gone all of two days.”

He laughed. “It felt like two years.”

She squashed another kiss to his lips and got off him, walking across the room in all her huge, naked glory, headed for the washbowl. He wanted to protest and ask her to hold him a little longer, but he didn’t want to seem strange. Not like the husband she knew.

Jaime lay back on the pillows, all but drunk with happiness as he stared up at the canopy above him. This was their life. The life they should have had. A life he had been a fool to throw away.

Both the bed and the room were familiar, he realised. More than familiar – he actually knew them well. This … it hadn’t been Lord Umber’s room, he recalled, but his wife’s. He and Brienne had liked it better as their marital chamber as the windows were bigger. The fireplace, too.

It was here they had spent their wedding night, he recalled, after marrying beneath the heart tree in the Last Hearth’s godswood. Brienne had been quite noticeably great with child then, though everyone had been too polite to mention it.

It was here she had delivered their child, too. The babe that was Sapphire but named Joanna.

He was with her – he remembered it, even as he knew he had been sequestered at the farm when she had birthed Sapphire in King’s Landing. But he had held her hand, wiped the sweat from her brow – seen their daughter come into this world, delivered by the maester. He’d been the first to hold her, too. Actually hold her, a child of his own. He remembered weeping like a babe himself at the small screaming bundle in his arms.

It seemed he had Lord Jaime’s memories as well as his own.

Brienne was dressed now, trying to put her hair into some sort of order before the looking glass; she was still flushed from her climax and swollen-lipped from the kissing.

“I was supposed to be in the training yard by now,” she admonished him, though she was grinning while she said it. “There’ll be twenty boys scrapping and pushing each other into the snow.”

“Can I watch you bang their heads together?” Jaime asked with a lascivious lick of his lips.

“You have a meeting too,” she reminded him.

“I do?” It seemed even Lord Jaime had forgotten about that.

“There’s a banquet to plan – for Joanna’s first name day? The Queen is coming.”

“The – the Queen?!” For a moment, Jaime’s heart sprang into his mouth. Cersei … But then he remembered that Sansa Stark was Queen in the North. “Oh. Yes.”

Brienne came back to the bed, bent over it to kiss him. “I will see you again at supper, sweetling.”

_Sweetling_ …

Jaime’s heart melted in his chest as she walked away and left their chambers. Oh … she called him sweetling, did she? She had never called him sweetling at Winterfell.

Jaime stretched his gloriously fit, healthy, whole, pain-free body in satisfaction and slid off the bed to stand steadily on his own two feet. He threw another log on the fire and stood at the window, quite naked with his hands on his hips, to survey his kingdom.

They were, he realised, in the middle of nowhere. Beyond the castle walls was nothing but an endless blanket of snow, ice and craggy black hills. Quite beautiful, but the middle of nowhere nonetheless. Deep in the fucking North.

Why were they not in Tarth?

Casterly Rock he could understand – that was Tyrion’s seat, as Hand of the King. Jaime knew he would have happily handed that monstrosity over to the more-capable hands of his little brother. But Brienne was heir to Tarth, and they were married, their daughter trueborn.

There had been … a letter?

He remembered it, or Lord Jaime did. Brienne had cried over it at Winterfell, great ugly sobs – the first time his other self had ever seen her cry. She had written to her father to tell him she was planning to marry, thinking he would be pleased, thinking he would invite them home. Instead, Lord Selwyn had disowned her – given his seat to his nephew and written a letter so vile that Brienne would not even show him what it said. She’d thrown it into the fire before he could insist, and the only two words Jaime had seen as the flames consumed it were _Kingslayer’s whore_.

There was a sharp rap at the door which roused Jaime from his lordly counterpart’s memories.

“One moment!” he called, dashing about the room to locate his clothing. He jumped into his breeches and tunic, leaving both unlaced as he pulled the door open.

He cried out in surprise, jumping back from the doorway. There, bearded and long-haired, beautifully dressed in a dashing scarlet cape, was Addam Marbrand.

Of course it was.

“What – what are you doing here?” Jaime blathered.

Addam looked at him as if he’d lost his wits. “We were supposed to meet, my Lord? An hour ago?”

Jaime blinked. Addam … Addam was his steward. Tyrion had sent him North to help Jaime run the castle. “Oh! For – for the nameday feast?”

“I’ve been waiting in Lady Brienne’s solar.”

“Sorry. Yes. I – I’ve been –”

Addam looked him up and down, noting his state of undress. Looked over his shoulder at the rumpled bed. “Of course, my Lord.”

“I – I’ve been away.”

“I know. You were hunting.”

“I was? Yes! So Brienne … I mean, I –”

“I understand.”

Jaime nodded. Of course, he owed no such explanations to this Addam, none at all. Brienne was his lady wife, they could lay together whenever they wished. Addam had never so much as looked at her with a lustful eye. Lord Jaime’s thoughts contained no such suspicions, anyway.

Still, he felt guilty. He remembered Addam’s soft eyes as he had looked at Brienne, the tender way he had held her. The terrified excitement in his voice when he had confessed to Jaime that he intended to ask for her hand.

He couldn’t help feeling that he had stolen that from his friend.

And Brienne …

Jaime squashed that thought down. He had broken her heart when he’d ridden away from Winterfell. Whatever had happened after that was irrelevant. She hadn’t deserved the heartbreak, and he knew, he _knew_ , he had made the wrong choice in leaving her behind. This was the way things were meant to be. Even Bran the all-knowing, tree-seeing king agreed.

He’d thought it important enough to kill for.

What Addam didn’t know couldn’t hurt him, and it couldn’t hurt Brienne, either. That was the most important thing.

_Sweetling_. He was Brienne’s sweetling, and nothing had ever felt so wonderful in Jaime’s life.

He dressed and found his boots. Slung his jacket on and made to follow Addam out of the door. Addam looked at him quizzically.

“What?” Jaime asked.

“Your hook, my Lord? And … your sword?”

“Oh!” He had been so used to living without a hand … and he hadn’t been armed in so long that neither had given him pause. He picked up the hook from the floor and strapped it on, the fastenings familiar and unfamiliar all at once. The thing felt quite good, he had to admit – lighter than the golden hand and certainly more practical.

Widow’s Wail was propped against the wall, golden and gleaming and just as beautiful as he remembered. It looked good on his hip, just as good as it always had. He hooked the chamber door closed behind them with a flourish.

Immediately, he regretted not bringing his cloak – the rest of the castle was colder by far than their chambers, and the walk to Brienne’s solar led them along several exposed walkways around the castle walls. He was shivering by the time they reached their destination.

He was immeasurably grateful that Brienne kept her solar as warm as their chambers.

He took the seat behind the desk, running his hand across the thick, polished ebony top. It was quite elegant for something that once belonged to Greatjon Umber, he thought. Shiny enough to see his reflection in. Addam took a seat on the opposite side. Lounged back in his chair.

“So,” Jaime said. “A banquet?”

Addam sighed. “I know. A banquet for a babe when we can barely feed ourselves for the next moon. Begging Lady Joanna’s pardon, of course. The new Queen in the North will have her due from the Lannisters.”

“I heard she was such a _practical_ ruler, too.”

“She looks after her own. In Winterfell. But with nothing coming in from the kingdoms we seceded from, I think her practicality has become meaner and meaner of late.”

Lord Jaime had been thinking the same thing. “My hunt …” Jaime said, thinking of the trip he had just returned from with his men. “Very little out there. If her Grace was hoping for more than a scrawny chicken and a scrap of stale bread to greet her …”

Addam nodded. “It won’t be easy.”

They fell silent for a moment.

“Not much to plan then, is there?” grinned Jaime.

“I suppose not,” said Addam. “I’ve already asked Marleigh to sort the chambers for the guests – what more is there?”

“Nothing I can bother myself with today, that’s for certain.”

Addam grinned. “I can see that, my Lord.”

“You know me well, Ser.”

“I do – I know that look in your eye. You’re in the mood to ride the wench.”

“I – wh-what?”

“Don’t worry, I know the feeling. I’ll get her ready for you.”

“You – you …”

Jaime spluttered. Is that what things were like here? Is that what –

Then, thank the gods, he remembered. His horse! Addam was talking about his horse – a big, sturdy mare Brienne had presented him with as a wedding gift. He’d named her The Wench. He and Addam oft made silly innuendo about riding her and the like, it was something of a running joke.

He was about to refuse, to go and see if he could catch a glimpse of Brienne training the boys in the yard when he realised.

“I – I can ride? I can ride!”

Addam gave him another odd look. “If you want to?”

Jaime nodded, eager. “Yes. Thank you, Ser Addam. Yes – I think I would very much be in the mood to ride The Wench.”

The thought intoxicated him, actually – riding a horse, being able to ride one _fast_! Not having to lean over and cling to its neck, having his feet flat in the stirrups – even being able to mount without falling several times in the process.

Indeed, it was every bit as magical as he remembered, despite the biting wind outside the castle walls. Jaime and Addam rode a little way down the Southern road towards Winterfell and then took a detour into the forest, racing through the tracks, ducking and weaving through the snow-covered branches, laughing and shouting like the boys they had once been.

The Wench was far quicker than her size suggested, and she knew these tracks well. She was exactly the kind of horse Jaime loved – strong, spirited, fearless, but dependable. Riding her made him love Brienne even harder. Again, he cursed himself for an idiot and a fool – could Cersei have picked him a horse such as this?

Of course not. The only two people in this world, the only people that mattered, one person in two bodies … all that was such a useless, hollow lie. A lie they had told each other, again and again until it obscured their truths, a lie born of fear, of loneliness, of a terrible, hateful sickness …

Then Jaime was flying. A branch caught him across the chest as he thundered through the trees, knocked him clean off The Wench’s back and into the snow. He landed arse first with a crunch – for a second he worried he had done what Brienne had done jumping into the privy pit at the farm.

Addam wheeled Sunchaser around and came back for him, all cocky laughter and a mocking shake of his head.

“What’s the matter, The Wench too much woman for you?” he grinned.

Jaime staggered to his feet. His arse, it seemed, was in one piece. “A branch –”

Addam pretended to think very hard. “Tis a strange thing – I don’t recall seeing any branches when I rode through there _ahead of you_.”

“You were not ahead of me!”

But Addam was right. There were no low-hanging branches on this part of the track – no matter where Jaime looked. But he had seen it – a dark shape coming towards him. He’d felt it strike him in the chest. Push him …

Suddenly, the fun was gone, the trees seemed dark and disapproving around them. They seemed to look down on Jaime, their rattling branches ticking him off like a naughty child. Jaime didn’t want to hear it – he mounted The Wench once more, and he and Addam turned back towards the Last Hearth as the sky danced with sunset colours through the silhouetted trees.

“Are you happy here?” Jaime asked as they got out of the oppressive forest and back onto the road.

“Happy?” asked Addam with a chuckle. He twisted to see Jaime’s face and saw he was serious. “Oh. Well, it’s quite cold …”

“Yes. Isolated, too. Not much opportunity to say, find yourself a wife?”

Addam shrugged. “That’s more my father’s problem.”

“You have company, though? Women?”

“Once or twice. Northern women, though …”

Jaime laughed. “Nobody special?”

Addam gave him yet another look as though he thought Jaime had lost his wits. “You sound like my mother.”

“Gods forbid!”

“What, are you going to send a raven to Tyrion and ask him to send me elsewhere? Somewhere more abundant in wenches, perhaps?”

“Well, if you were – wait … _Tyrion_?”

“I’m here as his bannerman, am I not?”

“Tyrion is …?”

_Alive_. Tyrion was alive! Of course he was. Without the Black Hole, Bran the Broken would not have executed him.

“Tyrion …” he breathed. Tears threatened to spill out of his eyes at the thought. He wanted to ride south, right now, wrap his little brother in his arms and never ever let him go. He’d fixed that, hadn’t he? Saved his little brother’s life.

“So who’s the woman?” Addam asked.

“What?”

“This sounds awfully like you have some woman you wish to make a match with me.”

Jaime laughed, grateful to have a distraction from thoughts of his brother. “Gods, no! Just … I want to make sure you’re happy here. With us. With me and Brienne.”

Addam didn’t answer for a moment. “That’s very kind, my Lord,” he said.

Supper was being served in the main hall when they got back – Brienne was seated at the top table with Podrick Payne beside her. Another life Jaime had saved from Bran by choosing this path – for some reason the lad’s broad smile made Jaime want to pull him into a hug.

Brienne was more than a little irritated by Jaime’s lateness, he could tell.

He apologised profusely, picking up her hand and pecking a kiss to her knuckles as he rushed to take the chair to her left – amused to note she sat in the Lord’s seat and he the Lady’s. Lord Jaime’s memories told him this was always so – The Last Hearth was very much Brienne’s seat, gifted to _her_ by Queen Sansa, with Jaime considered her consort.

It was fitting, Jaime supposed. Brienne was out there training the boys in the yard, and he was in the castle planning banquets like the Lady of the house. The thought amused him. Aroused him too, a little.

Jaime looked up to see Sapphire being brought into the hall by her nursemaids. No, not Sapphire – _Joanna_. He had to be careful lest he called her by the wrong name aloud.

She looked ever so pretty, dressed in a silk dress embroidered with lions, moons and starbursts. Her golden curls were neat and shiny, her skin pale and delicate instead of red-cheeked from playing outside so much at the hut.

Jaime stood up to take Joanna from the nursemaids, but they walked past him with a smile and a bow. Sat her at the far end of the table to feed her, the other side of Pod. Of course – Lord Jaime’s memories showed it had always been this way – she was the child of the Lord and Lady, after all. He had been too long away from noble houses. Of course, he wouldn’t need to feed her himself.

Lord Jaime had never changed his daughter’s napkin, either, let alone washed one. Lady Joanna was always presented to him perfectly dressed and fed and in a good temper. The only time he could recall seeing her cry was right after Brienne had birthed her. If she made the slightest fuss, the nursemaids bundled her from the room to soothe her.

He tried to catch his daughter’s eye, tried to smile at her, but she had no interest in anyone but her maids.

Jaime retook his seat a little sadly, just as he was presented with his meal. It was a thin venison stew, with a large hunk of bread to fill the stomach alongside it. Far less food than he was used to eating with Weslar and Kiren.

He was hungry, but it felt strange to eat a meal without a babe on his lap at least half of the time. He kept going to mash carrots and test the temperature of every spoonful.

He looked up from his bowl to see Brienne looking at him. A concerned frown on her brow.

“Are you well, Jaime?” she asked.

“Of course,” he smiled. “Sw – sweetling.” Did he call her that in return?

“Did you get the banquet planned?”

“Most of it. The … uh, the accommodations are arranged and uh … we just need to think about the logistics of food supply.”

Brienne sighed. Squeezed his hand. “That is a problem.”

“Perhaps we could persuade Lady – uh. _Queen_ Sansa to bring her own?”

The smile dropped off Brienne’s face. “We can’t be rude, Jaime. She does her best for her people.”

Even Lord Jaime disagreed with that – seceding from the Seven Kingdoms after a ruinous war in the middle of winter had been an act of pure ego.

But he said nothing. Lord Jaime knew that nothing good would come from debating Brienne on the subject of Sansa – she had never had the chance to see how hurtful her Queen in the North could be.

“Perhaps we should redouble our efforts with the hunting parties,” Brienne said. “More men.”

“It’s not a lack of men that’s the problem. It’s a lack of game.”

Brienne nodded, her lips pursed and the furrow between her brows deepening. She was no lackwit – she knew they would be down to eating rats long before the winter was out.

“Perhaps if I sent a message to Tyrion, ask him to send –”

“No!” Brienne hissed. “We are an independent kingdom, Jaime. It does not work that way.”

“Queen Sansa’s brother –”

“No! Hush, Jaime, please.”

“ _My_ brother, then. He’s Hand of the King. He would not see us starve.”

“You know it doesn’t work like that in the capital any more. Tyrion can’t risk criticising policy, not with the Ravens around.”

“The – the Ravens? They’re still –?”

“Don’t!” she warned him. “You know we can’t.”

Jaime’s heart sank in his chest like a stone. He’d thought that without a Black Hole, able to see anything and everything, that Bran would have no need to twist his Kingsguard so. No need to execute his brother, no need to murder the city, accident or no. And yet … even this far North, Bran the Broken’s influence was so pervasive that Brienne did not dare speak of it aloud.

Jaime didn’t have a chance to press the subject further – the doors to the hall burst open, and in tumbled Dimdim, their merry fool. Brienne stood to applaud, as did Podrick and Addam – clearly Dimdim was popular entertainment.

He was very skilled – far better at the art of foolery than any of those he had seen at court. Mostly, in King’s Landing, fools were given the job to humiliate them after misdeeds rather than because they were actually funny or knew how to tumble.

Dimdim soon had the room alight with merriment, despite the scarcity of the food and the grim Northern audience. He tumbled between the tables, juggled with knives, forks and even a jewelled dagger he plucked from Addam’s belt, much to everyone’s delight. He waved his bells to amuse the children and told a succession of bawdy jokes that even put a smile on Brienne’s face.

Jaime turned to watch Sapph- _Joanna_ and saw that she had already been taken to bed. He hadn’t even been able to kiss her goodnight. He remembered sadly that there hadn’t been a crib in their bedchamber, either. She slept in her nursery.

Wine flowed and ale was sunk. There was an air of celebration even though they faced starvation. This, Jaime supposed, was the indomitable Northern spirit – laugh your way into a freezing cold grave.

It certainly seemed to have grown on Brienne. She had swallowed her third ale, and beneath the table, her hand had crept onto his thigh.

Jaime could scarce believe it – it was hard to imagine the Brienne at Winterfell doing such a bold thing, particularly with Podrick sat beside her and Addam sat beside him. He clasped his hand over hers and turned to her – her beautiful blue eyes were alight in candlelight, her lips moist from the ale and her smile bright and wide.

Gods, she was everything he’d ever wanted.

Her hand slipped up from his thigh and over his chest, sinking into his beard to pull him closer. Then they were kissing – publicly kissing!

“Bed,” she whispered, hot breath in his ear. Pulled him up by the laces of his tunic in front of everyone.

Several of her men gave her a ribald cheer, and she raised her ale to them, knocked it back and then pulled Jaime from the room.

She was like some conquering Dothraki warlord, he thought as she manhandled him through the corridors. Invading a town or village and carrying off a beautiful maid. Jaime loved being her beautiful maid. Her conquest. She dragged him to their chamber and shoved him inside.

They came together in a frenzy of ale-soaked passion, shucking their cloaks and jackets and leaning their swords against the wall before coming back together to tear at their tunics. Jaime bent his head to suckle her nipples, and she gasped and clutched him against her thudding heart.

“What is that?” she whispered as she pushed his tunic off his shoulders.

“What?”

Jaime looked down at himself, at his chest, to see an ugly red welt running right across it.

“Oh! I … I rode into a branch.”

If truth be told, the mark looked more like a burn than a bruise – it was bright red and had sharp, defined edges. The imprint of a tree on his chest. There were forks and branches in it, too, as if every stick and twig had hit hard enough to hurt. He gaped at it. So did she.

“Maybe – maybe you should see the maester?” she suggested.

Fuck that, he thought. Fuck it all. There were more pressing matters at hand.

“Tomorrow,” he panted, pulling her back against him. Using the hook to undo her breeches. The mark stung a little as she pressed against him, but she was soft. She felt good. She was all that mattered.

“Jaime,” she panted. Forcibly pulling the hook from his wrist and dumping it to the floor.

“Now,” he whispered. “I need to be inside you now.”

He yanked her breeches down, and she kicked one leg out of one boot. Pulled him to the bed and then down on top of her, her free leg hooked over his shoulder. Jaime shoved his breeches about his thighs and slid into her – deep and achingly hard.

He had no hope of lasting – she felt so good – _so good_ and so soft and so strong … so wet and hot and so much and too much. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on her, on _her_ , on Brienne. Brienne. _Brienne_. But his pleasure was the sting of his chest, her gasps were the rustling of the trees, The bed was the lumpy straw pallet in the hut, and her mounting cries were Weslar’s singing. Sapphire’s laughter. The trees. The trees … the trees.

Jaime came with a roar, sinking his teeth into Brienne’s neck, his toes curling inside his boots. Thrusting helplessly as he spent.

The world was white. All white. Jaime was lost. So lost. What had he done?

He came back to himself to see Oathkeeper. Oathkeeper and Widow’s Wail, all golden lions and rubies and shimmering Valyrian steel. Together.

Together.

Wasn’t that what was right? Wasn’t that all that mattered? Isn’t that what Brienne wanted, for him never to have left her, for them to be happy together?

For Podrick to live, for Sapphire to be _theirs_ , for them all to be safe, and happy and …

Jaime dived downward and buried his face between Brienne’s legs. Closed his eyes. He lapped his seed from her cunt, and she sobbed and clutched his hair.

Her fingers felt as long as branches, as strong as trees. Strong enough to wrap around his throat and choke the life from him. She came with a hoarse, wordless shout and he did it again – crazed with her, never wanting this to end.

Knowing that it would.

“Enough … enough …” Brienne begged as he tried to lick her to a third climax. “I’m – I’m done.”

“Don’t – don’t say that. Please.”

“What?” She lifted her head from the pillows. Tried to blink away her sex-haze.

“Keep fucking me, I can get hard again in a minute.”

“Why?”

“I can’t stop. I might – I might leave you.”

She shoved him off. Sat up. Looked at him as if he’d grown another head. “Leave me?”

Jaime’s heart felt as though it might stop beating. As though it might leap out of his chest and choke him.

“Gods, you trust me, don’t you. You actually trust me.”

“What a ridiculous – You – you’re my lord husband! Of course I --”

Jaime pulled himself from between her legs. Sat on the edge of the bed, his breeches still about his ankles. Fuck, he made himself sick.

“Jaime?”

“I can’t do this to you. I – I can’t.”

“Do what?”

He couldn’t answer. Just shook his head and looked at the floor.

“Do _what_ , Jaime?”

He turned back to her, expecting to see her looking angry, but she didn’t. She looked worried – worried about _him_. She looked the way she had looked at the Dragonpit.

He didn’t deserve that look, that worry either. It made him feel sick to his stomach, it made the wound on his chest throb tight and hot.

How could he explain this? “There’s something else. Another world. Like … a dream of some kind. A vision, maybe?”

She looked confused. “What? What does that mean?”

“I … Bran … it doesn’t matter. At Winterfell, I – I left you to go back to King’s Landing. To Cersei.”

“In a dream?”

He sighed. This was impossible. “Sort of a dream.”

“This worries you? Cersei’s dead.”

“I know she is. It’s not …”

“You wouldn’t leave me for her. Not now, and not at Winterfell, either. You didn’t.”

Jaime closed his eyes.

“Why does this worry you? In _any_ way?”

“Because I did it. I – I saw myself doing it. And it –”

“It’s laughable, Jaime! Stop it! Why are you even worried about such a thing?”

Gods, she truly had no idea.

She wriggled to sit beside him on the edge of the bed. Took his face in both her hands, her thumbs caressing his cheeks, her eyes so very, very tender.

“I can see this hurts you, sweetling. The gods know what you had with Cersei was … complicated. And it’s probably always going to be somewhere in your mind.”

Jaime nodded. That was so very true.

“But … you would _never_ do that. I’m your wife. Your friend. We’ve fought beside each other, walked the Seven Hells together, brought a child into this world together. I know you better than anyone. You’re a good man, and you wouldn’t do that.”

Jaime closed his eyes.

Brienne placed a soft kiss on his forehead, the way he had seen her do to Sapphire so many times. “Cersei destroyed you. Tried to have you killed. Why would you ever have gone back to her – it makes no sense? You’re better than she is – that’s not who you are.”

But he’d pushed a boy out of a tower window. Beaten his cousin to death. Considered murdering every man, woman and child in Riverrun.

“It was a dream, Jaime, a bad dream. It didn’t happen. It could never have happened – just forget it.”

He slid his hand up her arm. Rubbed her hand with his thumb.

“I wish I could forget it,” he whispered. “Gods, you have no idea how much I wish I could put it out of my mind forever and just carry on as if it didn’t happen.”

“What are you saying?”

“I – I miss my daughter. I miss my friends. I miss _you_. I miss myself, being a man I actually like.”

“I don’t understand, have you lost your wits out there on your hunt? What’s amiss?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all, my perfect, perfect sweetling. In fact, I think everything is right. I think it’s time to become the man I was always meant to be.”

He took his hand from hers and put it on his chest. On top of that sore, stinging wound that cut across his skin, nipple to nipple. Now, it had burned away his chest hair. Scabbed black.

“Tell me you love me,” he whispered.

“I love you,” she said, without hesitation. “Jaime –”

Jaime closed his eyes and smiled.

When he opened his eyes, she was frozen. Everything was – the candles in the candlesticks, the fire in the fireplace. The snow outside. The castle was in silence, and there was only Jaime.

Jaime.

Jaime.

Jaime walked away from Brienne, out of their chambers and through the castle. Past servants and kitchen staff, past retainers and smallfolk. Past Addam, just headed into his chamber alone.

Jaime walked through the snow of the courtyard, his boots crunching in the snow, his lips still tasting of Brienne. He walked past the stables, past Sunchaser and The Wench. He thought of Joanna, of the girl that Sapphire would never be able to be.

He went to the godswood.

Went to the heart tree.

This was the tree they had married beneath – its long forlorn face seemed to watch him now, oddly alive in this place where nothing moved. The red sap that flowed from its eyes was the blood of the Raven.

Jaime knelt before it. Feeling foolish in a way, but feeling right. Knowing, somehow, what he had to do.

He reached for the tree. Touched the root of it. Hie eyes rolled back in his head.

He was in Winterfell. Hot, in Brienne’s chambers. Listening to her snore. Watching her sleep. He could feel her mind, moving next to his beside him, almost like a physical movement. She was dreaming something lovely, he could tell. Dreams of love, of making love. He smiled – oh, that felt good. Her love filled his body. Made him smile.

He had been a lucky man.

But, he got out of the bed, or part of him did. He watched himself tiptoe about the room, getting dressed. Watched himself sit in front of the fire. Felt his own pain, felt himself close it off, too.

It took his other self a long time to leave, but when he did, Brienne opened her eyes almost at once. He’d woken her with the sound of the door.

She blinked a few times, turned to the pillow beside her, to see him missing. She sat up in the bed, letting the furs slide down her naked body. Her face was horrible, the worst thing he had ever seen. Her face was pale and dreadful. Wounded and betrayed.

Jaime closed his eyes. He took her pain inside.

He opened them again to find her weeping. Sobbing.

It was daytime, the watery white light of Winterfell pouring through the shutters of her room.

Brienne sat on her bed, the furs pulled tight, her sword across her lap with a whetstone in one hand. The other was tight on Oathkeeper’s hilt while she cried.

When was this? He didn’t know. Some time after he’d left. Some time before he died.

Again, he felt her mind, this rippling, emotional thing that billowed out around her like a cloud. She wept for him – but not for him – she was thinking of the Jaime riding south on the Kingsroad. She was weeping for him. For him and for herself.

Jaime took her pain inside. Next, she was screaming.

Not Winterfell any more – this was a dark and dingy room in a billet outside King’s Landing. She was sprawled on the edge of the bed, her belly huge with child and her thighs bloodied and spread for some dirty old peasant woman – most likely a woods witch. Podrick, pale and overwhelmed, sat behind, clinging hard to both her hands.

She looked exhausted. Terrified. Sick with pain.

Jaime still had Lord Jaime’s memories of Joanna’s birth at the Last Hearth. It had not been like this – it had not been like this at all. It had been long, but it had been calm and controlled – she’d had the maester in attendance and her husband there to help and comfort her.

“Fuck you, Kingslayer!” she howled at the sky as another pain tore through her. Her face a rictus of pain and effort.

Yes, fuck him. Fuck him for doing this to her. Fuck him for doing it again. Jaime took her pain inside.

“I’m sorry,” he said, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him. “I’m sorry, Brienne.”

Her screams turned into a babe, crying. A tiny babe – those funny cries that newborns make that sounded like a goose. Was that Sapphire? He had never seen her so small.

Brienne paced the floor of her billet with their babe in her arms. Rocking her, shushing her – looking like she hadn’t changed her own clothes in a week. She looked beautiful nonetheless – tired, milk-stained and soft-bellied. She opened her tunic to offer Sapphire her breast – the babe refused. Picked her up to snuggle her close to her neck – it made no difference. Sapphire screamed and screamed.

“Shut your bastard up!” someone yelled. There was thumping on the wall.

Jaime saw Brienne’s eyes slide to Oathkeeper, leaning on the fireplace. Murder on her face.

“I’m sorry,” repeated Jaime. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

He took that anger, too – that rage she had, so strong it burned her.

Then he stood in the farmhouse. He was in Addam’s room, watching him ready his bed. Drinking from a wineskin. Scratching his arse.

There was a knock on the door – Addam sighed and rolled his eyes. Pulled the door open.

“What _now_?” he asked.

“Do you sleep with whores?” It was Brienne.

“I – what?!”

“Whores – do you fuck whores?”

“Once or twice,” he said.

“Good.” She pushed him backwards into his room.

He stumbled, his eyes wide. “My Lady! Ser …”

This was how it happened? Like _this_? Brienne proclaimed herself a whore because of _him_? Presented herself to Addam as a whore?

Jaime gaped at the pair of them as they bantered a little and then started taking off their clothes. He felt awkward, embarrassed, like he was intruding on something he was no part of. He closed his eyes and wished himself away.

He had their surge of passion, though – the thrill, the excitement. Brienne’s power. Addam’s astonishment. His wonder at this woman.

Jaime absorbed it, thirsty for it, needing it. The shadow and the shine.

He needed it all, needed it deep inside himself, needed it to become the man he was always meant to be.

The mark on his chest was no injury, not any more. It glowed inside him, wrapped around him, filled him even as he fleshed it out.

Jaime was no Black Hole. He was a Black Tree.

He opened his eyes.

He was on his knees before Bran the Broken, the carved bowl in his hand. It crumbled to dust at his touch and he stood.

Full.

Full.

Fuller than he’d ever been.

All of Brienne’s power – her sadness, her devastation, her pain, her rage, her passion and her power surged within him. All the power of Brienne without Jaime, of Jaime without Brienne.

“No,” said Bran the Broken from the tree. His eyes pure white. Pure black. A swirl of both.

Jaime lifted his hand and saw the branches of the black mark curled around it, intersecting the sore red skin he had from washing all those napkins.

Sapphire. His sweet, beautiful Sapphire. Happy running through his trees.

He closed his hand into a fist, and Bran the Broken screamed.

Around his hanging body, the black tree grew tighter. Tighter still, coiling about his limbs like snakes, squeezing, squeezing. Splitting his skin and splintering his bones.

Jaime held him tightly, wrapped his ribs and hips and thighs in branches. Bran wriggled, but he was weak. Jaime crushed him until some of his blood burst up through his skin and then he was still. It was over.

The black tree consumed the white tree, covering it, and Bran the Broken, completely.

On the black tree’s trunk, Bran’s solemn statue face opened red eyes. It smiled at Jaime. Spread its branches to make a seat.

“Are you ready?” asked Bran the tree. “Together we will see the things that you will do for love.”

Jaime smiled.

And then, as perhaps he should have done twenty-five years ago after killing a different king, Jaime climbed the steps and sat the throne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG what a ride it's been!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading to the end of Jaime Without Brienne - I sincerely hope you will stick around for the concluding part, Us Without Each Other, which will be out as soon as I can get it written! Thanks too to everyone who has left kudos and comments and chatted to me on Twitter and Tumblr and everywhere, it's been great to meet with so many wonderful people and hear your theories and wants for the story. Still another 12 chapters to go, so if you're there plotting my untimely death right now, you may still get what you want!
> 
> Extra special thanks to CaptainTarthister for reading and chatting and generally bolstering my enthusiasm for this story whenever I have flagged. She's been the jam in my roly-poly, she really has.
> 
> Also, huge thanks are due to my amazing reader who has compiled the brilliant [Jaime Without Brienne playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3LmWk4CW3argNpmnYwy7M2). It's been a joy to listen to and has been really inspirational.
> 
> Nothing more to say than stay tuned for Us Without Each Other! I'll be posting teasers and updates on both my Twitter [@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister) and my Tumblr [@catherineflowers29](https://catherineflowers29.tumblr.com/). I hope you will follow and say hi!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who has followed the first part of the story and I really hope you have enjoyed seeing these events from Jaime's POV. A trillion thanks for all the amazing comments and kudos and discussions, they have all been awesome to read and to participate in.
> 
> The hugest of thanks to the ever-brilliant CaptainTarthister, who never fails to steer me right. She keeps me afloat and her boundless enthusiasm for this story, even when I am plagued with doubt, is the most wonderful thing in the world.
> 
> As always, I'm going to be posting updates and teasers for this story on my Twitter, [@StupidLannister](https://twitter.com/StupidLannister), so please follow me and come say hi. I love to chat about it!


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